تجزیه و تحلیل هزینه فایده از اجرای حداقل استانداردهای بهره وری انرژی برای لوازم خانگی یخچال - فریزر در مالزی

The ownership of household electrical appliances especially refrigerator-freezer has increased rapidly in Malaysia. Almost every household in this country has a refrigerator-freezer. To reduce energy consumption in this sector the refrigerator is one of the top priorities of the energy efficiency program for household appliances. Malaysian authority is considering implementing minimum energy efficiency standards for refrigerator-freezer sometime in the coming year. This paper attempts to analyze cost–benefit of implementing minimum energy efficiency standards for household refrigerator-freezers in Malaysia. The calculations were made based on growth of ownership data for refrigerators in Malaysian households. The number of refrigerator-freezer has increased from 175,842 units in 1970 to 4,196,486 in 2000 and it will be about 11,293,043 in the year of 2020. Meanwhile it has accounted for about 26.3% of electricity consumption in a single household. Therefore, efficiency improvement of this appliance will give a significant impact in the future of electricity consumption in this country. Furthermore, it has been found that implementing an energy efficiency standard for household refrigerator-freezers is economically justified.

Refrigerator-freezers accounted for about 26.3% of residential electricity demand in Malaysia (Masjuki et al., 2000). Therefore, any efficiency improvement of this appliance will produce a significant amount of electricity consumption in residential sector. Many efficient refrigerator-freezers are available in the market today. Through pushing consumers to buy and use efficient refrigerator-freezers, a significant amount of electricity can be saved. This can be achieved by implementing minimum energy efficiency standards for the appliance. However, these potential energy savings should be proven economically reliable. An energy efficiency standard is the prescribed energy performance of a manufactured product, sometimes prohibiting the manufacture of products with less energy efficiency than the minimum standards. Minimum energy efficiency standards for appliances have been enacted in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia and the US. The program can be mandatory (i.e. government law or regulation) or voluntary (i.e. agreement with manufacturers). Most countries have adopted mandatory standards while several countries such as Brazil, Japan and Korea have successfully used voluntary standards. Standards are essentially voluntary in name only in these countries; failure to meet standards is likely to result in substantial embarrassment or imposition of mandatory standards. In countries with truly optional voluntary standards (e.g. India), impact has been limited (Nadel, 1999). Based on the experience of other countries, policymakers in Malaysia should implement the program as mandatory since it works effectively in many countries.

Implementing the energy efficiency standards for household refrigerator-freezer offer many benefits for Malaysia. The minimum energy efficiency standards will encourage manufacturers to produce energy efficient product which will increase the competitiveness of the product in the local and international market. The standards indirectly also reduce the environmental pollution. The study has shown that implementation of energy efficiency standards for refrigerator-freezer is economically reliable. The consumers will pay higher purchase prices for appliances, but luckily will get lower electricity bill. Once the standards are implemented, inefficient products will be pushed out from the market. If most of the products exceed the standards, it will become irrelevant. Therefore, the standards must be periodically revised to continued progress in improving appliance efficiency.