Energy Consumption of Major Household Appliances Shipped in Canada, Summary Report – Trends for 1990–2007

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Chapter 1 / Refrigerators

More than 44 percent of refrigerators shipped in Canada in 2007 qualified as ENERGY STAR^® products, exceeding the minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) by at least 15 percent. Also in 2007, as in all years studied since 1990, Type 3 refrigerators⁵ (those with a top-mounted freezer and automatic defrost) were the most popular type in Canada. They accounted for 61.0 percent of refrigerators shipped in Canada. However, their market share declined from 84.9 percent in 1990, once again in favour of Types 5 and 5A (those with a bottom-mounted freezer) and 7 (those with a side-mounted freezer), as outlined in Table 1.

Table 1 Distribution of Refrigerators by Type

Model Year	Standard-Size								Compact
	Type 1	Type 2	Type 3	Type 4	Type 5	Type 5A	Type 6	Type 7	Type 11	Type 13
	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)
1990	3.5	2.0	84.9	7.6	0.6	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	1.2
1991	3.1	0.3	84.3	9.0	0.8	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.3	2.0
1992	2.1	0.4	85.4	7.5	0.3	0.0	0.0	3.5	0.1	0.6
1993	1.1	0.6	85.5	6.8	0.7	0.0	0.0	4.2	0.1	0.9
1994	0.6	0.7	85.1	4.9	2.0	0.0	0.1	4.3	1.3	1.0
1995	0.2	0.6	84.8	4.6	1.6	0.0	0.1	5.2	1.9	1.0
1996	0.2	0.5	84.8	4.4	2.2	0.0	0.1	6.6	0.8	0.4
1997	0.4	0.1	83.8	3.8	3.2	0.0	0.0	8.3	0.4	0.0
1998	0.4	0.0	76.5	3.3	8.5	0.0	0.3	7.3	3.6	0.0
1999	0.1	0.0	76.6	2.4	8.4	0.0	0.4	7.5	4.6	0.0
2000	0.0	0.0	72.9	2.2	11.1	0.0	0.5	7.9	5.3	0.0
2001	0.0	0.0	71.1	2.1	11.1	0.0	0.4	9.1	6.1	0.1
2002	0.0	0.0	70.2	2.2	10.6	0.0	0.2	11.0	5.8	0.1
2003	0.0	0.0	68.2	2.4	13.9	0.0	0.1	11.2	2.0	2.2
2004	0.0	0.0	66.4	1.9	15.5	0.0	0.1	11.0	4.5	0.5
2005	0.0	0.0	64.8	1.1	17.9	0.0	0.0	9.6	6.3	0.1
2006	0.1	0.0	64.5	1.9	21.2	0.6	0.0	10.1	1.5	0.0
2007	0.1	0.0	61.0	1.6	22.3	1.2	0.0	13.5	0.3	0.0
Total Change	-3.4	-2.0	-23.9	-6.0	+21.7	+1.2	0.0	+13.5	+0.2	-1.2

Refrigerators with a volume between 16.5 and 18.4 cubic feet (cu. ft.) remained the most popular, accounting on average for 39.9 percent of the market in 2007. However, the market share of refrigerators with a capacity greater than 18.5 cu. ft. increased steadily from 1990 to 2007 – rising from 7.7 percent to 44.3 percent, as outlined in Table 2.

Table 2 Distribution of Refrigerators by Volume

Model Year	Volume (cu. ft.)
	<10.5	10.5–12.4	12.5–14.4	14.5–16.4	16.5–18.4	18.5–20.4	≥20.5
	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)	(%)
1990	3.8	13.2	17.8	14.1	43.3	2.6	5.1
1991	2.6	14.2	11.0	14.2	47.9	5.4	4.7
1992	1.6	10.9	10.0	19.6	42.0	8.3	7.6
1993	2.2	8.0	7.1	16.6	45.3	12.2	8.7
1994	3.4	9.5	6.9	16.5	45.8	8.7	9.3
1995	3.7	14.1	6.7	15.0	39.5	10.8	10.2
1996	1.9	13.5	6.7	13.4	38.6	12.5	13.4
1997	0.9	11.1	6.9	12.2	39.2	12.7	16.9
1998	4.0	9.3	7.1	10.6	42.7	11.1	15.2
1999	5.3	7.6	6.9	9.9	43.5	10.0	16.8
2000	6.5	6.6	7.7	9.0	41.2	9.3	19.7
2001	8.1	5.6	6.7	8.7	36.4	11.4	23.2
2002	6.3	5.5	7.4	6.8	34.6	15.3	24.2
2003	4.9	3.9	6.1	8.6	37.0	15.7	23.9
2004	5.6	3.0	3.3	11.0	39.2	14.3	23.5
2005	7.0	2.5	2.3	9.7	41.6	15.2	21.7
2006	2.9	3.6	2.5	9.7	40.1	17.3	23.9
2007	1.6	3.3	2.2	8.7	39.9	17.3	27.0
Total Change	-2.2	-9.9	-15.6	-5.4	-3.4	+14.7	+21.9

1.1 Energy Savings

Figure 4 shows how much energy refrigerators might have consumed annually between 1992 and 2007 without the decrease in average annual unit energy consumption (top line) and how much energy refrigerators actually consumed during those years (bottom line). The divergence of the two lines represents incremental annual energy savings.

On average, refrigerators consumed 0.9 petajoules (PJ) less per year than they would have without the contributing factors described in the Foreword. In 2007, refrigerators consumed approximately 1.56 PJ less than they would have without these factors. That amount is the equivalent of one year’s energy for approximately 14 000 households.

In 2007, cumulative energy savings for refrigerators reached 13.90 PJ (3.86 billion kilowatt hours [kWh]). Dollar savings for refrigerators for the study period were estimated to be $367 million (calculated at 9.5 cents/kWh).

⁵ The definitions of the various types of refrigerators can be found at oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/statistics/cama08/appendixb.cfm.

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