ENERGY STAR and Refrigerators

As technology improves and industries change, ENERGY STAR evolves with the market to deliver continued savings. For example, the ENERGY STAR specification for refrigerators was established in 1996 and has been updated multiple times, helping to reduce the average energy consumption of refrigerators while the average volume increased 18% from 1996-2017. In 2014, the metric for energy consumption was updated to include energy from ice making. The increased consumption in 2015-2017 is due to the change in the metric, as well as the increase in refrigerator volume. Each specification revision is marked by a star on the graph.