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.
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
I excluded any fridges manufactured before 2021.
The current slate of Energy Star-qualified fridges includes models from as far back as January 2014, so I narrowed my list of candidates to products that hit the market in 2021 or later — the last time Energy Star updated its criteria. While this technically means that this isn’t a one-to-one comparison of 2025 and 2016, it reflects important details:
- Stores don’t exclusively carry fridges from the current calendar year, so the data should at least reflect what’s available at retail.
- Many of the most efficient fridges were released before 2025.
- It’s entirely possible that a fridge rolled off the factory line a month ago, despite earning a certification in 2021.
Comparing your existing fridge
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 fridge’s age, size, configuration and local electricity price. For more current electricity prices, check your recent billing statement.
Likewise, you can look up an Energy Guide Label with your fridge’s model number for an exact yearly electricity use figure. I use the latest Energy Information Administration data from 2024 for my calculations — 2025’s data isn’t finalized as of the publishing of this article. It lists the residential national average at $0.1648 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
The magic number for each type of fridge
Because it all boils down to a refrigerator’s class and volume, I can’t give you a universal number that applies to every fridge. Instead, I’ll break down the highlights and average stats in each class. Finding retail pricing from 2016 (and 2025) proved to be a much more difficult task than I could resolve in the time I had for this analysis. Instead, I used the data to create simple energy savings guidelines below.
Fridges with the most potential savings over 10 years
Energy-efficient side-by-side fridges yield the most savings, according to my calculations.
If the added cost of upgrading to a new fridge (compared with buying or repairing a used one) is lower than the numbers below, the new fridge will likely offset that price difference through 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 fridge costs more than this efficiency premium, it will take longer to break even. Remember that while averages can give you a good rule of thumb, the most efficient appliances will save even more in energy costs. These numbers also don’t account for potential rebates from your utility company, so actual savings may be even higher.
Crucially, these numbers assume you aren’t switching to a different refrigerator type. For example, you’ll likely see even greater energy savings when replacing a side-by-side fridge with a bottom-freezer fridge.
Key takeaways
- New side-by-side refrigerators will, on average, cut your energy costs more than any other type of fridge, though bottom freezers also saw some nice improvements over the last 10 years. Upgrading either type of fridge to a modern version is probably worth it.
- The $83 in energy savings for 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 identical to that of 2016. You don’t need to be picky with most models.
A new top-mounted fridge could save just $83 in electricity over 10 years.
Top-mounted freezers
Top-mounted freezers
| Top-mounted | 2025 (average) | 2016 (average) |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency (vs. U.S. standard) | 10.80% | 4.10% |
| Annual energy usage | 344 kWh/yr | 394 kWh/yr |
| Annual energy cost ($0.1648/kWh national average) | $56.62 | $64.94 |
| Monthly savings vs 2016 | $0.69 | – |
| Annual savings vs 2016 | $8.31 | – |
| 10-year savings vs 2016 | $83.14 | – |
- Over 10 years, a new top-mounted freezer saves an estimated $83 in electricity bills compared with a 2016 model.
- I couldn’t find a single example from the sample data (including the 2016 MAEDBS data) that doesn’t already meet the requirements for Energy Star Most Efficient 2025.
- 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 freezers and side-by-sides. They’re also the smallest full-size refrigerators.
A new bottom-mounted freezer should save around $272 in electricity over 10 years.
Bottom-mounted freezers
| Bottom-mounted | 2025 (average) | 2016 (average) |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency (vs. U.S. standard) | 14.80% | 8.50% |
| Annual energy usage | 468 kWh/yr | 633 kWh/yr |
| Annual energy cost ($0.1648/kWh national average) | $77.09 | $104.27 |
| Monthly savings vs 2016 | $2.26 | – |
| Annual savings vs 2016 | $27.18 | – |
| 10-year savings vs 2016 | $271.80 | – |
- A new bottom-mounted freezer should save an estimated $272 in electricity bills over 10 years compared to a 2016 model.
- Bottom freezer refrigerators earn higher efficiency scores on average than other full-size fridges, but their efficiency improvements since 2016 aren’t as pronounced as those of top freezers and side-by-sides.
- Roughly one in six bottom freezers qualify for Energy Star Most Efficient 2025 — only three models from 2016 meet this standard.
Side-by-side
| Side-by-side | 2025 (average) | 2016 (average) |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency (vs. U.S. standard) | 12.70% | 4.20% |
| Annual energy usage | 507 kWh/yr | 714 kWh/yr |
| Annual energy cost ($0.1648/kWh national average) | $83.62 | $117.63 |
| Monthly savings vs 2016 | $2.83 | – |
| Annual savings vs 2016 | $34.01 | – |
| 10-year savings vs 2016 | $340.08 | – |
A side-by-side or “French door” fridge is the winner in terms of potential savings.
- A new side-by-side refrigerator saves an average of $340 in electricity bills compared with 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 these also qualify for Energy Star Most Efficient 2025 — as opposed to a single product in the modern group.
Compact fridges
| Compact | 2025 (average) | 2016 (average) |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency (vs. U.S. standard) | 14.20% | 14.70% |
| Annual energy usage | 256 kWh/yr | 252 kWh/yr |
| Annual energy cost ($0.1648/kWh national average) | $42.13 | $41.59 |
| Monthly savings vs 2016 | -$0.05 | – |
| Annual savings vs 2016 | -$0.54 | – |
| 10-year savings vs 2016 | -$5.44 | – |
Mini fridges haven’t become significantly more energy-efficient.
- New compact refrigerators have roughly the same energy efficiency as their 2016 counterparts. In fact, the average 2016 model uses less energy.
- While compact refrigerators use less energy overall than full-size fridges, they use more electricity per cubic foot of volume.
- 121 minifridge models (81%) from 2016 meet modern Energy Star criteria.
- Roughly 5% of models from both sample groups qualify for Energy Star Most Efficient 2025.
Where you live also plays a role
Your regional energy costs can swing the savings in either direction.
Electricity costs vary widely depending on the state and region you live in. For example, North Dakota’s average price in 2024 was just 11.51 cents per kilowatt-hour (the lowest in the US), while Hawaii’s was a whopping 42.86 cents.
The higher your electric rate, the more you’ll save on energy with a new fridge. Compared with the national average, residents of Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Alaska will see additional energy savings of 51% to 160% when buying a new Energy Star refrigerator.
Conversely, savings will be much lower in states with relatively cheap electricity, such as North Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington, which average less than 12 cents per kilowatt-hour. In North Dakota’s case, that’s just $237.51 in savings on a side-by-side fridge — $102.56 less than the national average.
Efficiency math doesn’t add up for smart refrigerators
The exorbitant upfront cost of most premium smart fridges will likely cancel out your energy savings.
While I don’t explicitly explore it in this analysis, smart fridges aren’t generally a good investment if your main goal is saving energy over time. It has nothing to do with energy efficiency and everything to do with the premium you’re paying for smart home tech.
For example, Samsung’s smart refrigerator models cost at least $700 more than their traditional counterparts — this easily obliterates any long-term energy savings. That said, smart fridges aren’t going away, and it’s OK to splurge if your budget allows.
How I did the math: Calculating efficiency data for fridges from 2016
Calculating refrigerator efficiency was a major undertaking.
When I started on this analysis, I had no idea how bewildering refrigerator efficiency regulations are in the US. But I needed to understand them to accurately calculate 2025 energy-efficiency values for all the 2016 models.
The simplest way to explain this is that every possible fridge configuration uses a unique formula determined by efficiency variables, the refrigerator’s adjusted volume, and expected base energy consumption.
For example, Class 3 Refrigerators have a top-mounted freezer, automatic defrost, and don’t include an automatic icemaker. Because the freezer is on top, the appliance’s fan can take advantage of the fact that cold air sinks to pull air from the freezer into the fridge compartment. This type of passive cooling will always be more efficient than pumping cold air up from a bottom-mounted freezer.
Likewise, the adjusted volume accounts for the freezer compartment, which takes more energy to reach a target temperature than the fresh food compartment. Adjusted volume is always larger than the linear volume of a fridge — at least when the appliance has both a freezer and a refrigerator.
Lastly, all of the components of a fridge have a baseline energy level (base load) determined by the laws of physics. Since fridges can’t use less than this much energy, it’s added to the final calculation:
(Efficiency variable X Adjusted Volume) + Base Load = Maximum Allowable Energy Use
Once you realize that nearly everything — from defrost type to freezer location to built-in versus freestanding — affects efficiency, it makes sense that there are 42 classes of fridges and freezers with different energy efficiency standards.
Energy Star criteria are more straightforward
Energy Star has several ratings for home appliances.
It’s much easier to calculate the energy level a fridge needs to qualify for an Energy Star Certification. It simply needs to use 10% less energy than the federal standard — I excluded modern fridges that fall below this threshold. The last wrinkle is the Energy Star Most Efficient status, which changes every year. Here are the 2025 standards (PDF):
- Top-mounted freezers must have an annual energy consumption of 637 kWh or less.
- Bottom-mounted 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 figured out the calculations for each fridge class, it was simply a matter of adding the formulas to my spreadsheet, calculating average energy costs and determining the savings.
