How Chile is putting its ageing refrigerators out to pasture
In 2018, U4E established a programme in Chile, with support from Fundación Chile, the Ministry of Energy and private companies such as Hisense, Samsung and Whirlpool, to help consumers access new, energy-efficient refrigerators.
Under the U4E scheme, which operates in countries around the world, consumers can buy new refrigerators with a discount of up to 35 per cent if they trade in their old, energy-inefficient refrigerator. U4E also takes away the old product for free and ensures it is safely recycled for free. Chile’s old-for-new-appliance campaign replaced more than 1,500 ageing refrigerators in its first month alone.
Annually the project aims to save over 1.3 terawatt hours of electricity, avoiding the need to build three power plants of 100 megawatts each. Newer refrigerators and freezers will save over 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, the equivalent emissions from more than 340,000 cars. They will save Chilean consumers more than US$294 million in electricity costs every year.
Cooling Emissions and Policy Synthesis, a UNEP and International Energy Agency report, found that the impact of energy-efficient refrigerators can be significant. By combining energy-efficient products and moving away from inefficient, polluting refrigerants, greenhouse gas emissions of between 210 – 460 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent could be avoided over the next four decades. Based on 2018 levels, this equates to between four to eight years of total annual global greenhouse gas emissions.
The problem of energy-inefficient refrigerators in Chile is acute, according to U4E. There are over 6.8 million domestic refrigerators and freezers in Chile, with almost 100 per cent of households owning one. More than 1 million of these are at least 15 years old. The Ministry of Energy in Chile estimates that 19 per cent of all household electricity used comes from refrigerators.