ENERGY STAR and Clothes Washers

As technology improves and industries change, ENERGY STAR evolves with the market to deliver continued savings. For example, the ENERGY STAR specification for clothes washers was established in 2001 and has been updated multiple times, helping to reduce the average energy consumption of clothes washers by 30% and water consumption by over 50% while the average capacity increased 34% from 2004-2017. Each specification revision is marked by the star on the graph. Each ENERGY STAR efficiency level on the graph has been calculated using the shipment-weighted averages for capacity and top-load/front-load ratio during each the period for each version of the specification. The resulting step-wise plot has some smaller or larger steps driven by smaller or larger changes in the capacity and the top-load/front-load ratio as well as any changes to the test procedure.