One of the biggest reasons to buy a new refrigerator is better energy efficiency compared with an older model. But how much of a difference does energy efficiency make in the long-term costs of a fridge? I'm here to crunch the numbers in a battle royale between modern fridges and those from 10 years ago (2016).
Fair warning before I get started, I did a lot of math on a sample size of 2,630 fridges. I focus almost exclusively on long-term energy costs because I gained easy access to the appropriate Energy Star data.
Where my fridge data comes from
Publicly available Energy Star data is a major player in this analysis. Screenshot by CNET
For my 2025 samples, I analyzed energy usage in modern Energy Star-certified models. For 2016, I couldn't rely on Energy Star data, because it lists only models that qualify for the most recent standards, not past ones.
Instead, I sourced my 2016 data from the California Energy Commission's Modernized Appliance Efficiency Database System. Rather than cover 42 refrigerator classes individually, I grouped them into the following broad categories:
Fridge types analyzed
Sample size: 2025 Sample size: 2016 Top-mounted freezers 385 137 Bottom-mounted freezers 440 192 Side-by-sides 23 68 Compact refrigerators 1,235 150 Total 2,083 547
I didn't look at standalone refrigerators because there wasn't enough data from either sample group to perform a meaningful comparison. Standalone freezers are a different Energy Star dataset that I didn't include.
It was essential to exclude older products from the modern data
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