GE Consumer & Industrial Receives Third Straight EPA/DOE ENERGY STAR® Sustained Excellence Award

LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have awarded GE Consumer & Industrial the ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year "Sustained Excellence" award for the third straight year. This award recognizes GE's tremendous efforts to create high-performance household appliance and lighting products that help reduce energy spending and protect the environment. This marks the fifth year GE has been acknowledged as an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year.

"We are proud to recognize GE’s continued efforts with the 2008 ENERGY STAR Sustained Excellence award,” said Robert J. Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air & Radiation. “Year after year, partners like GE are examples of the benefits of a long-term commitment to energy efficiency. Their actions are leading the way in saving energy and helping to protect the environment.”

GE has been an active supporter of the ENERGY STAR program through a variety of methods, including broad consumer and customer education, participation in national and regional ENERGY STAR events, and the promotion of ENERGY STAR products to consumers and homebuilders.

GE took energy efficiency to another level in 2007 with the introduction of the ecomagination^SM Homebuilder Program. Compared to industry-accepted average new homes, homes built to ecomagination Homebuilder Program specifications are designed to achieve at least 20% household energy savings, at least 20% savings on household indoor water consumption, and at least a 20% reduction in emissions associated with the home. In addition to including ENERGY STAR qualified appliance and lighting products, homes built to ecomagination Homebuilder Program specifications are classified Environments for Living® Certified Green.

In addition to the ecomagination Homebuilder Program, GE invested $47 million in 2007 to create 215 new ENERGY STAR appliance models. From 2002–2007, GE invested more than $452 million to develop and bring to market high-efficiency appliance products. A broad range of GE Monogram®, GE Profile™, GE Café™, GE® and Hotpoint® brand clothes washers, refrigerators, dishwashers, room air conditioners, dehumidifiers and water products are ENERGY STAR qualified. GE's ENERGY STAR offering includes products that are both efficient and innovative, such as:

• ENERGY STAR qualified dishwashers. America’s smartest dishwasher now steam cleans. This fall, steam will add even more cleaning power to the ENERGY STAR qualified GE Profile™ Dishwasher with SmartDispense™ Technology – a dishwasher that stores the contents of an entire 47 fluid-ounce bottle of liquid or gel detergent, dispensing based on water hardness, cycle selection, and soil level of dishes. More than 20 billion gallons of water would be saved per year if all Americans used ENERGY STAR qualified GE Profile dishwashers. That’s enough to fill 25,000 Olympic-size swimming pools!
• ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerators. Innovations like dual-evaporator technology in many of GE’s refrigerators improve energy efficiency and help maintain food freshness. GE’s ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerator models use at least 15% less energy than required by current federal standards and 40% less energy than the conventional models sold in 2001.
• ENERGY STAR qualified washers. This summer, GE will introduce the ENERGY STAR qualified GE Profile™ SmartDispense™ Frontload Washer, which features a system that stores and automatically dispenses detergent and fabric softener based on each load's size, soil level, water hardness and fabric or cycle type. If every US household with a non-ENERGY STAR qualified washer were to replace it with a GE ENERGY STAR qualified Frontload washer, we could save enough water each year to fill more than a million Olympic-sized swimming pools. In addition to frontload machines, GE also offers topload washers equipped with automatic temperature controls, more energy-efficient drain pumps, and motors that use less water.
• ENERGY STAR qualified room air conditioners. GE offers consumers plenty of cool choices when shopping for room air conditioners. Replacing a 10-year-old room air conditioner with a new GE ENERGY STAR qualified model means consumers can save up to 25% in operating costs and will use at least 10% less energy than with conventional new models.
• ENERGY STAR qualified lighting. GE Energy Smart™, ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) continue to build momentum in the marketplace. Compared to standard incandescent light bulbs, these products use up to 75% less energy and last up to 10 times longer. Currently, GE lists 220 ENERGY STAR models. GE also recently added new Energy Smart™ Dimmable Spiral® CFLs to its ENERGY STAR lineup. Today, 26-watt and 15-watt versions are available. Each bulb dims to 20% of its maximum light output and both have a rated life of 10,000 hours.

GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliance, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and "ecomagination," a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE) brings imagination to work, selling products under the Monogram®, Café™, Profile™ GE®, Hotpoint®, Reveal®, Edison™ and Energy Smart™ consumer brands, and Entellisys™ industrial brand. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.