Green Energy Labelling - Green Energy and Efficiency: An Economic Perspective - page 139

Poland and Spain supported the idea of an , where new categories

could be added above class A (with different formats such as A-20 and A-40 %, or
A+ and A++). However the European Parliament, environmental NGOs and con-
sumers favoured re-scaling the A-G scale and changing the valuation parameters to
adapt them to the new situation of improved energy ef

' open approach '

ciency on the market. After
deadlocks and many bureaucratic problems, Directive 2010/30/EU was eventually
enacted in 2010, and a label scheme based on an A+++ to D scale was adopted
[ 13 , 30 ]. This highlights the importance of getting the label design right before
launching it, and also the need to reduce bureaucratic barriers to facilitate the
promotion of innovations (Figs. 4 , 5 ).
Despite these problems, EU energy labelling is well-known among consumers,
and is considered responsible for the technical innovation undergone in Europe,
which reduced electrical consumption by electrical white goods by 12 % between
1995 and 2005 [ 3 ].

4 Analysis of Willingness to Pay for Ef cient Domestic

Appliances in Spain

This section seeks to show the importance of willingness to pay for ef cient goods,

and how labelling can help consumers to identify this attribute of a product. In
particular, the cases of three major domestic appliances in Spain are analysed:
refrigerators, washing machines and dishwashers. As Spain is an EU Member State,
use of EU energy labelling is mandatory. This is tantamount to an indirect analysis
of the effectiveness of this label. We also use a demand system method to estimate
the elasticities of demand for these appliances with a view to improving the
information available on this issue, and therefore the effectiveness of the design of
policies to supplement a label scheme.
The data analysed in this chapter were collected in January 2012 from 11 dif-
ferent retailers in 6 regions of Spain by the company CPS, Estudios de Mercado y
Opinión S.L . Those regions were Galicia, the Basque Country, Valencia, Seville,
Madrid and Barcelona. Attributes vary from one type of appliance to another, so the
variables collected from each appliance differ too. For this reason, each type is
taken in isolation for the analysis.

4.1 Washing Machines

The data contain 1,876 observations for washing machines. 27 producers sell 39
different brands of washing machines on the Spanish market. Table 2 below shows
the variables taken into account in this analysis. Other variables have been excluded
because of lack of information for some models (power, residual humidity,