Offer Hope that the White House and DOE Are Addressing Delays to Energy Efficiency Standards

So U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced new national energy efficiency standards for microwave ovens on Friday. I mean energy standards that will take a bite out of standby (or “vampire”) power. Just as important, completion of this long-delayed rule offers hope. Especially that the White House and the Department of Energy (DOE) are ready to put an end to the delays. All that have been plaguing new efficiency standards. Moreover for the past couple of years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First, let’s talk about microwaves. With a few simple changes, energy wasted by microwaves can be reduced to almost zero. In addition, a typical microwave spends only about 70 hours heating up food over the course of a year. For the remaining 8,690 hours (99% of the time), the microwave also consumes energy continuously. For that’s to power the clock display and also the electronic controls. But some microwaves waste more energy than others. The microwaves that waste the most energy in standby mode consume about 4 watts of standby power, which adds up to about 35 kilowatt-hours (kWh) over the course of a year. The new efficiency standards, which will take effect in 2016, will limit standby power consumption to just 1 watt for most microwaves…

To continue reading the blog post visit: https://aceee.org/blog/2013/06/new-standards-cut-vampire-energy-wast

ACEEE: The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

ASAP: The Appliance Standards Awareness Project appliance-standards.org/.