The Tunisian standards and labelling programme

Tunisia has recently implemented a standards and labelling programme for household appliances and other energy using equipment. This programme, which is the fruit of six years labour supported by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and executed by l'Agence Nationale pour la Maitrise de l'Energie (ANME), led to the issue of energy labelling and minimum energy efficiency standards regulations for refrigerators in 2004. This paper reports on the design and implementation of the programme that not only serves as a role model for how such programmes can be conducted in developing countries, but also matches or exceeds the design and implementation of similar programmes in developed countries. Findings are presented on the following elements: consumer research used to design the Tunisian energy label, the establishment and accreditation of national test facilities, the energy performance certification, verification and compliance process, the development of refrigerator energy efficiency and labelling criteria, public communications and outreach strategy projected programme impacts Results are also presented from a detailed and sophisticated refrigerator techno-economic energy engineering analysis that provided much of the analytical basis for the choice of labelling and efficiency standards thresholds. As a result of its careful design and implementation it is forecast that by 2030 the programme will have saved 3.4 Mt of CO2 emissions at a cost to the GEF of just 20 USc/tonne. The cost of conserved electricity for Tunisian consumers is projected to be less than 1 USc/kWh, which compares very favourably with the current tariff of 7.4 USc/kWh