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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has initiated an effort to consider amending energy conservation standards for refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers.  Once completed, this rulemaking will fulfill DOE's statutory obligation to either propose amended energy conservation standards for these products or to determine that the existing standards do not need to be amended. To this end, DOE must determine whether standards more stringent than those currently in place would result in a significant amount of energy savings and whether such amended standards would be technologically feasible and economically justified.  In the proposed rule, DOE tentatively concludes that the proposed standards represent the maximum improvement in energy efficiency that is technologically feasible and economically justified, and would result in the significant conservation of energy.  Specifically, with regard to technological feasibility, products achieving these proposed standard levels are already commercially available for all covered product classes.  As for economic justification, DOE’s analysis shows that the benefits of the proposed standard exceed, to a great extent, the burdens of the proposed standards.

On September 25, 2023, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers and efficiency and consumer organizations and utilities, submitted a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or the Department) recommending new and amended efficiency standards for various home appliances to the Department for consideration including for refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers. Under the authority provided in 42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4), DOE is now pursuing this effort through a direct final rule, see 1904-AF56.