For a tasty but efficient coffee

Panel: 6. Innovations in buildings and appliances

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Jürg Nipkow, Topten International Services, Switzerland
Eric Bush, Bush Energie GmbH, Switzerland
Adelmo Pilone
Barbara Josephy, Bush Energie GmbH, Switzerland

Abstract

The stock of coffee machines in the European Union is estimated 100 Mio units, consuming 17’000 Mio kWh per year and causing electricity costs of about 2’500 Mio Euro (according to estimations by Topten). Roughly 20 million coffee machines are annually sold in Europe. For comfort and quality reasons, the trend goes towards espresso machines (capsule machines, fully automatic machines) and filter pad machines; by now those machines account for about 45% of total sales (pieces), while the rest are mainly traditional filter coffee machines.

Regarding the high saving potentials, manufacturers have taken various efforts to increase the energy efficiency of coffee machines in the past five years. Energy efficiency particularly was enhanced with measures as auto-power-down, better insulation of hot parts and low standby consumption.

A striking development towards super efficient coffee machines is the application of flow-type heaters. Due to the introduction of this technology by some innovative manufacturers these types of coffee machines represent the current best available technology (BAT). The most efficient coffee machines available on the European market are presented on www.topten.eu.

This paper discusses the energy saving technologies as auto-power-down and flow-type heaters, gives an overview of the current state of the EU Ecodesign process (Lot 25) and IEC 60661 standard (update in progress) and discusses policy measures on European Minimum Energy Performance Standards MEPS and a labelling directive.