What Is Energy Star and How Does It Save You Money?

It is good for the environment and good for your wallet to use less electricity. When you buy a computer, refrigerator, or TV, you might see an Energy Star logo on the side of it, but what does it mean?

The Environmental Protection Agency is in charge of the Energy Star program. The manager of product development at Energy Star, who I met with, has worked at the EPA for over a decade. We talked about the program's history, mission, and how it can save you money.

The Green Lights program focused on energy use by light bulbs. Energy Star was launched a year later to look at the electricity-guzzling computers and monitors used by more and more office workers. The Clean Air Act instructed the EPA to use non-regulatory approaches to reduce pollution.

The government decided to try a non-regulatory approach. The government is compared to a teacher. If you want to have incentives for your best students, you need to have discipline in place for the problem students.

We want the top 25 percent of products on the market. The program is a market-transformation program. The bar needs to be lifted due to lots of innovation from manufacturers.

It makes sense, but we may be getting a little ahead of ourselves. That sticker means something to me. Products that use less energy are identified. Kaplan argues that quality doesn't need to be sacrificed in order to get efficiency. She says that you're getting features and functions that you want. The explainer shows the consumer side of things.

Back to those decals. Large yellow tags can be found on certain items when you shop for household appliances. The Federal Trade Commission runs EnergyGuide, not the EPA. An Energy Star sticker indicates the top of the class, while an EnergyGuide tag shows how much energy a product uses in a year.

Energy Star covers a lot of products. There is one recent addition to households that may not be known.

According to Kaplan, air cleaners can use as much energy as a fridge. You wouldn't think that this is a big energy user because some of these are small products. The guide on the Energy Star website is for choosing an energy efficient air purification system.