Refrigerator exchange 2:1

In the FHH agencies, numerous privately brought in refrigerators were in use by employees, which first of all, required very much energy (due to their being old and discarded private refrigerators) and secondly, they were often not used to their full capacity. Against this background, the Environmental Authorities initiated the “refrigerator exchange 2:1” programme in 1999.

The idea of this programme was that for every two old refrigerators handed over by the agencies, a new energy-efficient refrigerator would be provided free of charge. The aim of the policy was not only a reduction of the specific energy consumption of each individual refrigerator but also change in behaviour.

It is a national policy.

Relevant sectors

• Services: The sectoral focus is the service sector.

The technological focus are refrigerators (main focus here), boilers and lighting.

For every two old refrigerators handed over by the agencies, (and in the sense of this programme that meant those which were more than 10 years old) a new energy-efficient refrigerator was provided free of charge

At that time, the new machines were equivalent to what was later defined as EU energy label subclass A+ (0.33 kWh/d or 105 kWh/yr for the 150l models; after introduction of the EU label, the winning manufacturer changed this model to have a higher volume with a consumption of 150 kWh/a, which is still A but no longer A+)

Relevant target groups

• Governmental actor Public purchasers are the main target group.
• Manufacturer

Direct beneficiaries

• Governmental actor

  Employees benefit from the P&M. They get a new refrigerator and the old refrigerator is recycled at at no costs. Furthermore the public sector benefits directly by saving energy costs.

Relevant barriers

• Economic and financial barriers: A main barrier not to invest in energy efficient equipment are the higher purchase prices. The programme aims to help low-income households save money and reduce energy consumption by replacing old, inefficient refrigerators at no cost to them.
• Lack of interest and motivation in energy efficiency-improvement: For the vast majority of actors, the costs of energy are so small compared to their total (production or consumption) costs that energy-efficiency improvement is not even taken into consideration. Furthermore, there is a tendency that companies, organisations and households focus on their core activities only.

Relevant incentives

• Saved energy costs: The employees get a new refrigerator at no cost and the public sectors can save electricity.

The replacement programme interacts with a refrigerator recycling programme

The replacement of the refrigerators is combined with a recycling programme.

Funding
This financing scheme was already established in 1991 by an agreement between the State/City of Hamburg and its then electric utility, HEW (Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke). HEW originally provided 20 million DM (approximately 10 million Euros) for investments in efficient lighting, which were to be paid back from the saved energy costs, and allowed for a return on investment of 2% above the societal discount rate. A similar system was established for the refrigerator replacement programme

Most of these old fridges were installed in the offices by the staff, bringing in their own old appliances. By order of the City of Hamburg, it is now forbidden to install privately owned fridges in the City's premises. Instead, the City's environmental department (which organised the procurement) offered the various departments to replace two old appliances with one new refrigerator. Under the programme, the city made procurements in 1997/98 for 3,381 new refrigerators in order to replace ca. 5,706 old refrigerators, which were distributed over all office and other buildings owned by the city. The procedure of the programme is illustrated in the next figure.

In Hamburg, the general responsibility for procurement lies with the finance authorities. They are concerned with the fundamental matters concerned with procurement as well as a considerable part of the actual procurement itself.
The refrigerator replacement programme was organised by the City's environmental department.

The logistics were carried out by the City's street cleaning and waste management department.

A short ex-post impact evaluation of realised energy savings exists.

The policy was combined with a refrigerator replacement programme.

All 1,120 agencies of the Hamburg government were invited to participate and 77% of them (862) did in fact take part. With 3,381 new fridges, the city estimates that this has cut the electricity consumption of the appliances exchanged from 2.15 million kWh/yr to 381,000 kWh/yr i.e. a saving of over 1.7 million kWh/year and €100,000/yr (Umweltbehörde Hamburg 2000) was realised.
Around 48% savings were realised through the renunciation of old appliances and 52% through the lower specific energy consumption of the new refrigerators. Based on the German power station mix at that time, this means there was an annual saving of 1,076t CO₂.

The bulk purchase realised by the city of Hamburg made these low costs possible. The total investment amounted to around €1 million, of which some €0.125 million was paid as an extra by interested boards and around €0.875 million was from a special part of the budget, reserved for investment purpose (Faßbinder, Fabig 2001).

Due to the low unit price of the refrigerators achieved by bulk purchasing and reduced features, the programme was cost-effective for the city, even though it provided the new refrigerators for free to its employees. Energy cost savings were €100,000/yr.
The price has also been reduced through somewhat reduced features (e.g. no electronic display, no egg-tray). The City chose refrigerators without any freezer compartment since (a) they consume less and (b) a freezer compartment was assumed unnecessary for offices.