New, more energy-efficient appliances may cost you at the register, but the savings tend to catch up 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 case.
Newer models use considerably less electricity than those from even 10 years ago, and that gap in energy use translates directly into lower utility bills.
I wanted to put an actual number on it, so I did a ton of math, analyzing 2,630 fridges and their Energy Star data to compare today’s models to those from 2016. (While I didn’t calculate the energy delta for fridges older than 2016, it’s almost certainly greater.)
Here’s how much energy and money you could save by making the switch.
Where my fridge data comes from
Publicly available Energy Star data is a major player in this analysis.
Screenshot by John Carlsen/CNET
For my 2025
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