Electricity and water consumption for laundry washing by washing machine worldwide

Abstract

Washing laundry is one of the most widespread housework in the world. Today, washing machines do this work in many private households, using water, electricity, chemical substances, and process time. Although energy efficiency is in the focus of many regulations which have already achieved significant improvements, the question remains, how relevant these processes are in terms of the absolute impact on resources and whether there are possibilities to improve even further by looking abroad. This survey, which is based on published data, compares the energy and water consumption for automatic laundry washing in an average private household with the total energy and water consumption of private households. Only little data are available on resource consumption for laundry washing and reliable figures based on in-use measurements are hard to obtain. But although some of the data in this report are poor, this is the first work that tries to elucidate the contribution of automatic laundry washing to the total electricity and water consumption of households in selected countries worldwide. The report estimates the resource consumption of roughly 590,000,000 washing machines in 38 countries with about 2.3 billion people, which is about one third of the world population. The results of this work show that laundry washing in private households is done with quite different amounts of electricity and water in different parts of the world both in absolute and relative comparison to the overall household consumption. But due to different consumer habits in dealing with the achieved washing performance in the different global regions, the best practice in washing laundry in a most sustainable way cannot be determined yet. Further research is needed to form a basis for a most sustainable development of resource consumption in private households.

Quantifying drivers of variability in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of consumer products—a case study on laundry washing in Europe

“…In particular, energy consumption of washing machines in different countries has been reported in a number of studies such as AISE (2013), Koerner et al (2011), Laitala et al (2011), Lin and Iyer (2007, Market Transformation Programme (2010), Masanet (2010), Novem (2001), Pakula and Stamminger (2015), Presutto et al (2007), Yao and Steemers (2005) and Zaraket (2014). Inter-country variability arises from the differences in the GHG footprint of the electricity grid mixes and systematic differences in consumer behaviour in different countries.…”

Household analysis identifies water-related energy efficiency opportunities

“…A range of companies using this, indicate that up to 70% less energy use is possible in the shower (and hot water system), when warm water can be rapidly recycled, effectively reusing the water and the energy embodied in the water. Finally, while it may appear self-evident to include the temperature of cold water in studies of energy use in water-using appliances, this is not evident in the few observable papers addressing, for example, global electricity consumption associated with clothes machines (Pakula and Stamminger, 2010). Additionally, taking into account the potential range and anticipated variability in shower water temperature (along with other key variables) will help improve estimates of water-related energy.…”

A New System to Estimate and Reduce Electrical Energy Consumption of Domestic Hot Water in Spain

“…This means that washing at 30 °C used 29.6% less than washing at 40 °C and 58.7% less than washing at 60 °C . If we assume that the number of cycles is 165 per year in Spain [42] and we consider temperatures of Table 13, the final energy consumption would be 74.96 kWh per year. In the second option, users need to spend money to obtain energy savings, drawing on the research by Washlstrom [43].…”