The Impact of the New EU Energy Label 2021 on Energy Consumption of Domestic Appliances

This paper examines the impact of the 2021 revision of the EU energy labeling regulation on the energy efficiency of refrigerators sold in Belgium, France, Germany, and Poland between 2019 and 2022. We analyze detailed product-level sales data to assess whether the introduction of the new labeling system (the New EU Energy Label 2021) improved the energy performance of products available on the market. The results reveal substantial cross-country differences in sales-weighted energy consumption: Germany and Belgium exhibit significantly lower average energy use, reflecting differences in product portfolios and consumer preferences, while consumers in France and Poland tend to purchase less efficient models. After controlling for refrigerator characteristics, average energy consumption declined by 2.8% in France, 3.4% in Belgium, and 3.5% in both Germany and Poland between March 2021 and December 2022. We further estimate a nested logit demand model incorporating both energy labels and the discounted ten-year cost of electricity consumption. The results indicate that, except in Poland, consumers tend to undervalue future energy costs under both the old and new labeling regimes. The estimated willingness to pay (WTP) for labels varies across countries, with some evidence of overvaluation for specific efficiency classes. Using the model, we conduct counterfactual simulations to assess the effects of alternative policy scenarios. The simulations suggest that the 2021 reform led to measurable improvements in the average energy efficiency of refrigerators sold in the EU market.