Energy efficiency of household appliances?

What is the typical range of energy efficiencies for household appliances, such as air conditioners, clothes dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, lighting, et al? To answer this question, we have tabulated almost 20,000 data-points from the US EPA’s excellent ENERGY STAR program, and other technical papers.

We estimate a house equipped with modern appliances will likely have 60% lower energy demand versus 30-years ago. However, c30% of tyipcal household hold appliances are more than 10-years old, and 5% are more than 20-years old, so there may be very large savings still to come from upgrading.

Even today, the best appliances have c30% lower energy consumption than the worst appliances (90th percentile versus 10th percentile), so it would be helpful to prioritize efficient purchasing decisions.

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