WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy has announced its final version of new energy and water efficiency standards for dishwashers. This is the first update to these standards since 2012.
Consumer Reports, which rates and reviews more than 130 models of dishwashers, said the new standards are designed in a way to help consumers save money on utility bills, while ensuring that shoppers can continue to find a wide variety of dishwashers that perform well. Less-efficient models will be improved to meet the levels of better-performing products that are already on the market today.
Shanika Whitehurt, Consumer Reports’ associate director for product sustainability, research, and testing, said, “This is a positive development for consumers. We’ll be able to save money on dishwashers that use less energy, and manufacturers won’t have to compromise on cleaning performance. Dishwashers’ water and energy use has decreased significantly over the last couple of decades, thanks to manufacturers’ innovations and federal standards, and cleaning performance has actually improved in the same period of time.
“There are several dishwashers evaluated by Consumer Reports that are highly rated for their cleaning ability, and they get our ‘Green Choice’ mark for saving energy,” Whitehurst added.
The Department of Energy has estimated that the standards would save consumers approximately $2 billion on their utility bills over 30 years of shipments, and result in emission reductions of nearly 6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
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Contact: David Butler, david.butler@consumer.org