Star rating and check testing of refrigerators - CPRI experiences

With growing population, economic and industrial development, the need to examine alternative sources for generating electricity has become very important and the gap between Electrical power demand and supply in the country is increasing, so it is essential to have efforts to conserve the electricity by using energy efficient electrical products. There is always a possibility to save energy by proper usage of energy efficient components to minimize the wastage of energy in electrical appliances. The standards & labeling programme was launched for Air conditioners and Refrigerators by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) during May 2006 on voluntary basis to minimize these wastages. The manufacturers started displaying the star labels on the products from March 2007. The programme was made mandatory from January 2010. In order to verify the correctness of the star labels,BEE has introduced the check testing of the refrigerators and Air conditioners. The star rating evaluation involves the measurement of energy consumption & volume with gross & storage volume of the refrigerator along with pull down test as qualification requirement. The process of determining the energy rating consists of measuring the tested energy consumption of the refrigerator. From December 2013 to July 2014, 15 numbers of refrigerators were check tested as per BEE requirements by CPRI. The star rating of each of the models are calculated from the tests carried out at CPRI. Out of these 74% of the tested refrigerators meet the star rating claimed by the manufacturer.