Your old refrigerator is costing you dearly. This is how much energy a new model saves each year

Newer, more energy-efficient appliances may cost you a lot at checkout, but the savings tend to make up for it over time. Most people think of heat pumps or solar panels when they hear “long-term energy-saving investment,” but your refrigerator quietly makes the same argument.

Newer models use significantly less electricity than those from a decade ago, and this gap in energy consumption translates directly into lower utility bills.

I wanted to put a real number on it, so I did a lot of math, analyzing 2,630 refrigerators and their Energy Star data to compare today’s models to those from 2016. (Although I didn’t calculate the energy delta for the refrigerators older (than in 2016 it’s almost certainly bigger.)

Here’s how much energy and money you could save by making this change.

Where does my refrigerator data come from?

For my 2025 samples, I analyzed the energy consumption of modern Energy Star certified models. For 2016, I couldn’t trust the Energy Star data because it only lists models meeting the newest standards, not older standards.

Instead, I obtained my 2016 data from the California Energy Commission’s Modernized Appliance Efficiency Database System. Rather than covering 42 classes of refrigerators individually, I have grouped them into the following broad categories:

I did not review stand-alone refrigerators because there was not enough data on either sample group to make a meaningful comparison. Freestanding freezers are a different Energy Star data set that I have not included.

It was essential to exclude older products from modern data

The current list of Energy Star-qualified refrigerators includes models dating back to January 2014, so I narrowed down my list of candidates to products hitting the market in 2021 or later — the last time Energy Star updated its criteria. While this technically means it’s not a one-to-one comparison between 2025 and 2016, it does reflect some important details:

• Stores do not exclusively carry refrigerators from the current calendar year, so the data should at least reflect what is available at retail.
• Most of the most efficient refrigerators were released before 2025.
• It’s entirely possible that a refrigerator rolled off factory lines a month ago, despite receiving certification in 2021.

Comparison of your existing refrigerator

I suggest using Energy Star’s Flip Your Fridge Calculator to compare your current refrigerator with this analysis. It provides a rough estimate based on your refrigerator’s age, size, configuration and local electricity price. For more current electricity prices, check your recent billing statement.

Likewise, you can look for an energy guide label with the model number of your refrigerator to find out the exact annual electricity consumption figure. I’m using the latest Energy Information Administration data from 2024 for my calculations – the 2025 data is not finalized as of this article’s publication. It says the national residential average is $0.1648 per kilowatt hour.

The magic number for each type of fridge

Because it all comes down to the class and volume of a refrigerator, I can’t give you a universal number that applies to every refrigerator. Instead, I’ll break down the highlights and average stats for each class. Finding 2016 (and 2025) retail prices proved to be a much more difficult task than I was able to solve in the time I had for this analysis. Instead, I used the data to create simple energy saving guidelines below.

Refrigerators with the greatest savings potential over 10 years

If the additional cost of upgrading to a new refrigerator (compared to buying or repairing a used refrigerator) is less than the figures below, the new refrigerator will likely make up that price difference in energy savings alone over the next 10 years:

• Side-by-side refrigerators: $340
• Bottom freezers: $272
• Top freezers: $83
• Compact refrigerators: $0 (average energy efficiency remains largely unchanged since 2016)

If a new refrigerator costs more than this efficiency bonus, it will take longer to break even. Remember that while averages can give you a good idea, the most efficient appliances will save even more in energy costs. These numbers also don’t take into account potential discounts from your utility company, so the actual savings may be even higher.

Importantly, these numbers assume you’re not switching to another type of refrigerator. For example, you’ll likely see even greater energy savings by replacing a side-by-side refrigerator with a bottom-freezer refrigerator.

Key takeaways

• On average, new side-by-side refrigerators will reduce your energy costs more than any other type of refrigerator, although bottom freezers have also seen some nice improvements over the past 10 years. Upgrading either type of refrigerator to a modern version is probably worth it.
• The $83 energy savings on top freezers over 10 years probably won’t be enough to justify an upgrade if your existing top freezer still works.
• Modern compact refrigerator technology is largely the same as it was in 2016. You don’t need to be picky with most models.

Top freezers

• Over 10 years, a new top freezer saves about $83 in electric bills compared to a 2016 model.
• I have not found a single example among the sample data (including MAEDBS 2016 data) that does not already meet the Energy Star Most Efficient 2025 requirements.
• The average efficiency of modern Energy Star rated top freezers is almost triple that of 2016.
• Top freezers use less energy per cubic foot on average than bottom and side-by-side freezers. They are also the smallest full-size refrigerators.

• A new bottom freezer is expected to save about $272 in electric bills over 10 years compared to a 2016 model.
• Bottom-freezer refrigerators average higher efficiency scores than other full-size refrigerators, but their efficiency improvements since 2016 are not as pronounced as those of top freezers and side-by-side refrigerators.
• About 1 in 6 bottom freezers are eligible for the 2025 Energy Star Most Efficient label – only three 2016 models meet this standard.

• A new side-by-side refrigerator saves an average of $340 in electricity bills compared to a 2016 model, the largest savings in this analysis.
• While five side-by-side refrigerator models (7%) from 2016 still meet modern Energy Star criteria, two of them also qualify for the 2025 Most Efficient Energy Star award – as opposed to just one product in the modern group.

• The new compact refrigerators are about the same energy efficient as their 2016 counterparts. In fact, the average 2016 model uses less energy.
• Although compact refrigerators use less energy overall than full-size refrigerators, they use more electricity per cubic foot.
• 121 (81%) 2016 mini-fridge models meet modern Energy Star criteria.
• Approximately 5% of models in both sample groups qualify for the Energy Star Most Efficient 2025 label.

Place of residence also plays a role

Electricity costs vary greatly depending on the state and region in which you live. For example, North Dakota’s average price in 2024 was just 11.51 cents per kilowatt hour (the lowest in the United States), while Hawaii’s was 42.86 cents.

The higher your electricity rate, the more energy you will save with a new refrigerator. Compared to the national average, residents of Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Alaska will experience additional energy savings of 51% to 160% when purchasing a new Energy Star refrigerator.

Conversely, savings will be much smaller in states where electricity is relatively cheap, such as North Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington, where the average price is less than 12 cents per kilowatt hour. In North Dakota’s case, that’s just $237.51 in savings on a side-by-side refrigerator, which is $102.56 less than the national average.

Efficiency calculations are not suitable for smart refrigerators

Although I won’t explore it explicitly in this analysis, smart refrigerators are generally not a good investment if your main goal is to save energy over time. This has nothing to do with energy efficiency and everything to do with how much extra you pay for smart home technology.

For example, Samsung’s smart refrigerator models cost at least $700 more than their traditional counterparts, easily negating any long-term energy savings. That said, smart refrigerators aren’t going away, and you can splurge if your budget allows.

How I did the math: Calculating Efficiency Data for 2016 Refrigerators

When I started this analysis, I had no idea how confusing US refrigerator efficiency regulations were. But I needed to understand them to accurately calculate 2025 fuel efficiency values ​​for all 2016 models.

The simplest way to explain this is that each possible refrigerator configuration uses a unique formula determined by efficiency variables, adjusted refrigerator volume, and expected baseline energy consumption.

For example, Class 3 refrigerators have a top-mounted freezer, automatic defrost, and do not include an automatic ice maker. Since the freezer is located above, the appliance’s fan can take advantage of the fact that the cold air is descending to draw air from the freezer into the refrigerator compartment. This type of passive cooling will always be more efficient than pumping cold air from a bottom-mounted freezer.

Likewise, the adjusted volume takes into account the freezer compartment, which requires more energy to reach a target temperature than the fresh food compartment. The adjusted volume is always greater than the linear volume of a refrigerator, at least when the appliance has both a freezer and a refrigerator.

Finally, all components in a refrigerator have a basic energy level (base charge) determined by the laws of physics. Since refrigerators cannot consume less energy, this is added to the final calculation:

(Efficiency Variable X Adjusted Volume) + Base Load = Maximum Allowed Energy Use

Once you realize that almost everything – from the type of defrost to the location of the freezer, to whether it’s built-in or freestanding – affects efficiency, it makes sense that there are 42 classes of refrigerators and freezers with different energy efficiency standards.

Energy Star criteria are simpler

It’s much easier to calculate the energy level a refrigerator needs to achieve Energy Star certification. It simply has to use 10% less energy than the federal standard – I’ve excluded modern refrigerators that fall below that threshold. The final wrinkle is Energy Star Most Efficient status, which changes every year. Here are the 2025 standards (PDF):

• Top freezers must have an annual energy consumption of 637 kWh or less.
• Bottom freezers and side-by-side units must be at least 27% more efficient than the federal standard.
• Compact refrigerators must be at least 30% more efficient than the federal standard.

Once I understood the calculations for each refrigerator class, I simply added the formulas to my spreadsheet, calculated the average energy costs, and determined the savings.