A new EU-wide public database enabling consumers to compare the energy efficiency class and other data about different household products has been launched by the European Commission this week. With detailed information on well over 1 million products, the European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL) breaks new ground in helping EU consumers become more energy efficient. Building on the highly successful EU energy label, this innovative tool provides unprecedented market transparency free of charge at a time when consumers are looking to make savings on their energy consumption, and when the Commission is trying to boost energy efficiency across the EU.
Now that the EPREL database is public, consumers have a free online tool that can help them easily find the most energy efficient models of the appliance they wish to buy and obtain key product information in all official EU languages.
Established under the 2017 Energy Labelling Framework Regulation, the EPREL registry has been operational since 2019. Since then, more than 7000 suppliers have registered household products newly placed on the market which are required to have an EU energy label. These range from light bulbs to fuel boilers, refrigerators and washing machines. Over the first 3 and a half years of operation, an estimated 1.3 million models have been registered in this database.
In addition to the standardised information on individual products, the public interface contains search options and a feature that automatically shows up-to-date, “real-time” statistics on the number and share of models in each efficiency class for any given product category or sub-selection. Results can be sorted to up to 3 parameters simultaneously. This feature will help public authorities implement green public procurement (as required under the Energy Efficiency Directive) and other policies to promote the use of energy efficient products (reduced VAT rates, public incentives, energy investment funds). It will also help private investors, suppliers and retailers to target investments (in line with EU Taxonomy rules) and to develop, supply or market more energy efficient products.
Background
With its comparative scale from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient), the EU energy label has been a key driver for helping consumers choose products that are more energy efficient. At the same time, since it was first introduced in 1994, it has also encouraged manufacturers to drive innovation by using more energy efficient technologies in order to be in the top categories. In 2019, the energy label was recognised by 93% of consumers and 79% considered it when buying energy efficient products, according to the Special Eurobarometer 492.
With the development of more and more energy efficient products leading to categories of A++ and A+++, the EU energy label was rescaled for many products in 2021 in order to return to the original A to G spectrum, which is more understandable to the consumer. This rescaling saw products in the A+++ category becoming class B or lower. There remains a number of products which still use the original scale (with A+, A++, etc.), but these will be rescaled in the coming years.
The rules on the EU energy label should be seen alongside EU legislation on ecodesign, which helps improve the energy efficiency of energy-related products. These policies are estimated to save EU energy consumers billions of euros each year whilst bringing numerous other environmental and consumer benefits.
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Details
- Publication date
- 17 May 2022
- Author
- Directorate-General for Energy
- Location
- Brussels