As things stand – unless the European Parliament and Council amend the European Commission’s proposal for a recast of the energy efficiency directive (EED) – energy-guzzling electric heaters bearing the labels E and F – banned from the market since 26 September 2017 because of their poor energy performance – will qualify as D and could appear on shelves again.

Other electric heaters could be bumped into a higher labelling class without any actual improvement in their performance. This could mislead consumers about their electricity consumption and thus overall costs, and is not an effective way to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions.

The EED recast proposal assumes that on average electricity in the EU is produced more efficiently than is currently the case, and the Commission proposes that, to be consistent, the same assumption should be made for related legislation, such as eco-design for space and water heaters, which has a knock-on effect on energy labelling.