Appliance Standards Awareness Project Alliance for Water Efficiency

The standards in the DFR reflect the joint recommendation that we submitted to DOE in September 2023 with the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM),1 which was supported by States and additional utilities.2 The standards for clothes washers were part of a package of recommendations for six products (refrigerators/freezers, miscellaneous refrigeration products, residential clothes wash. [...] The new standards for clothes washers, which are equivalent to the current ENERGY STAR levels for standard-size top-loading and front-loading washers, will primarily improve the efficiency of top-loading machines.3 The standards will provide large national energy and water savings—0.7 quadrillion Btus of energy and 1.9 trillion gallons of water over 30 years of shipments—and cut carbon dioxide emi. [...] As DOE described in the DFR, the average number of clothes washer cycles per year declined from 292 in the 2005 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) to 210 in the 2020 RECS.16 During the same period, DOE noted that the average household size has remained essentially unchanged. [...] Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the frequency of running multiple cycles will increase in the future as a result of the standards in the DFR. [...] As noted above, the new standards for standard-size top-loading and front-loading washers are equivalent to the current ENERGY STAR levels; as of 2022, 61% of sales of clothes washers were ENERGY STAR-certified.21 DOE’s analysis for the DFR shows that the new standards can be met through design changes such as using a direct-drive motor and higher spin speeds.22 Furthermore, as shown in figure 1 b.