A project designed to promote energy-efficient refrigerators in China has helped reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 11 million tons, according to the state environment watchdog.

 

 

The China Refrigerator Project, initiated by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in 1999, had greatly improved the energy-efficiency of refrigerators, said Li Xinmin, deputy director of the pollution control department under the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).

 

The initiative had enabled the energy consumed to fall from 79.4 percent of the statutory maximum in 1999 to 56.6 percent last year, according to statistics from the China Household Electrical Appliances Association.

 

A common household refrigerator utilizes about 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day but an energy-efficient appliance uses at most 0.6 of a kilowatt-hour daily. Due to the lower consumption each refrigerator is expected to discharge five tons less carbon dioxide over a lifetime of 10 years.

 

The statistics also show that the production of energy efficient refrigerators soared from around one million in 1999 to 10.7 million in 2004 and to more than 14 million in the 12 months ending in June 2005.

 

Li Xinmin attributed the rapid rise of energy efficient refrigerators to the project's market promotion strategy which helped the profits of manufacturers and increased awareness of the importance of environmental protection.

 

The project initially aimed to promote sales of 20 million energy efficient refrigerators in 10 years since it was launched and help cut carbon dioxide emissions by 100 million tons.

 

The GEF has donated US$9.6 million to the project. Sixteen manufacturers producing more than 85 percent of China's refrigerators and 12 compressor companies have participated. China has more than 130 million refrigerators each using about a half of the electricity used in an average household each day.

 

Zhang Xianfeng, an appliance expert, estimated the refrigerators produced in China in the next 15 years would use 601 billion kilowatts-hour of power and emit a high quantity of greenhouse gases.

 

If each refrigerator can save 20 percent of the electricity used the country could cut the power used by nine billion kilowatt-hours and save 10 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) in investment and prevent an accelerated deterioration of air quality, he said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2006)