Choosing an eco-friendly fridge freezer
The most energy efficient fridge-freezer brands
The table below shows the highest energy-rated free-standing fridge-freezer on each company’s website (there may be differences in their fridge-only or freezer-only models).
Only a few had models rated above D, which is roughly similar to the previous highest rating (A+++). Many companies didn’t have anything with a rating higher than F, similar to the previous A+ which was the minimum expectation since 2012. Two brands fell below with only G-rated models.
Most companies made it possible to search by energy rating, or made them easily visible on their websites. Those that did not were AEG, Aga, Beko, Belling, Blomberg, CDA, Flavel, Hisense, John Lewis, LEC, LG, Rangemaster, Stoves, Swan.
The numbers refer to how many models were of that rating, out of all models shown. for example LG 1/34 means that of 34 LG fridge-freezers, 1 had an 'A' rating. (Some websites duplicated models if they were available in different colours).
|
Energy efficiency of fridge-freezers by brand |
A |
LG 1/34 |
B |
|
C |
Liebherr 4/43, Bosch 3/25, Siemens 2/28 |
D |
Miele 6/12, Smeg 4/16, IKEA 2/4, Grundig 1/6, Whirlpool 1/20, Siemens 1/10 |
E |
Beko 20/20, AEG 9/10, Stoves 8/9, John Lewis 3/7, Neff 4/14, Hotpoint 3/51, KitchenAid 1/2, Electrolux 1/5, Haier 1/5, Hoover 2/24, Indesit 1/22 |
F |
Swan 1, Flavel, 2 Belling 2, CDA 4, Blomberg 4, Hisense 4, LEC 6, Essentials 7, Bush 8, Russell Hobbs 8, Zanussia 10, Montpelier 14, Amica 15, Kenwood 16*, Logik 17, Fridgemaster 18, Fisher Paykel 26, Candy 29 |
G |
Aga 2, Rangemaster 3 |
*on Currys website. Although the deadline for applying new energy labels to company websites was 19 March 2021, the following still referred only to old ratings: Gorenje A+++ 11/15; Sharp A++ ?/80; Baumatic A+ 3/3.
kWh is the key to energy consumption
As well as the energy efficiency class (A-G), the energy label lists how many kWh electricity an appliance uses per year, the volume of freezer space and of chilled space, and how noisy it is.
The energy efficiency class is calculated relative to the volume of the appliance. So, a 150 or 350 litre fridge could both carry the same energy rating, but the smaller one will use less energy.
To use the least energy, the kWh figure is the most important one to compare.
We looked on Curry’s website in March 2021, and found a small fridge from Liebherr, one of our recommended brands, that only used 113kWh/year. Compare that to the cheapest American style fridge they had which used 387kWh/year.
Small is beautiful
Minimising energy use will involve not buying a fridge bigger than you need. Although storing more food in the fridge might sound good at first from a food waste point of view, it really depends on your buying and cooking habits. If you over-buy and then can’t see what you’ve got, produce will probably get neglected and go off anyway.