Energy efficient appliances not the lowest energy users

When is energy efficiency not equivalent to energy savings? When Americans keep believing that "bigger is better." In the same way that a hybrid Lexus can't compare in fuel efficiency to a conventional Honda Civic, Heather Rae at the Cleantech blog notes that shopping for energy efficient appliances isn't the same as looking for energy sipping ones.

Armed with the latest Energy Star data on refrigerators, she shopped around to find the best deal on an energy efficient appliance. Her discovery?

I opened the doors of every refrigerator in every one of those stores and read the average annual kWh consumption printed on their yellow Energy Guide tags. I consoled myself that I could not even consider purchasing a high-end refrigerator -- basically anything with side-by-side doors and a through-the-door water/ice dispenser, because, comparatively speaking, they consume too much electricity. That was my rationale, anyway. As with most everything in fixing up this house, the refrigerator would be a compromise of desire, quality and price...

...On outings to appliance stores, I carried a list of EPA's Energy Star-rated refrigerators...

...If I were to buy a refrigerator on the low end of the price spectrum (a top freezer model) it would more than likely be more energy efficient than all of the high-end Energy Star-rated side-by-sides and some of the bottom freezer models -- even if it did not carry the Energy Star label.... (emphasis mine)