April 22, 2024 European Product Database for Energy Labelling (EPREL)

EU energy labels explained.

What is EPREL?

EPREL stands for European Product Database for Energy Labelling. EPREL provides a database where manufacturers register all products that require an energy label. Starting on 1 March 2021, the new EU Energy Labelling regulations came into force, and now it is a legal requirement for manufacturers to upload their product information into the EPREL database before selling it on the European market.

EPREL’s main goals 

The main EPREL’s purpose is to provide EU consumers with important energy efficiency information. Additionally, this allows authorities to effectively perform market surveillance and enforce regulations. For suppliers, EPREL mainly serves as a guideline to accurately list technical documentation and in return gives access to the EU market.

For authorities & consumers:

• provide EU consumers with important energy efficiency information;
• effectively perform market surveillance and enforce regulations.

For suppliers:

• serves as a guideline to accurately list technical documentation;
• gives access to the EU market.

Updates in the new label model

Here are the new changes in energy labels you need to comply with:

• The QR code gives access to more information on the model
• The rescaled energy efficiency class for this fridge, an A+++ in the previous label
• The annual energy consumption of this fridge is calculated with refined methods
• The volume of the fridge expressed in liters (L)
• The noise level measured in decibels (dB) and using a four classes scale.

Amongst major problems with EPREL, there are:

• The gap between classes;
• Hard to onboard EPREL’s data model;
• Complicated technical documentation;
• Time-consuming data uploads;
• Inconsistent product information;
• Complex multi-stage setup.

Uploading products to EPREL: manual way

In case of choosing manual data delivery, you will need to register in EPREL. Follow these steps for registering product models in EPREL manually:

1. Create a “registration-data” XML file in EPREL format containing the list of operations and model parameters.
2. Prepare a ZIP file in the required EPREL structure to be uploaded to the file storage of EPREL.
3. Log in to the EPREL Compliance Website with your EU Login account.
4. From the homepage click on the wheel icon in the top right corner of your screen and then click on “Uploads”.
5. To upload a new file click the button “Upload models”.
6. Click “Browse” or drag and drop a valid ZIP file that you want to upload in the dashed area.
7. Once the file is processed, the EPREL system will generate a final report with all the errors and successes log.

Usually, manual data delivery leads to numerous errors, time loss, and results in a headache for the eCommerce team. (озвучка, не йде на екран)

Uploading products to EPREL with Gepard PIM Solution

One of the most rational ways to solve the EPREL challenge is to apply a system-to-system approach. This method allows you to submit many products in bulk and avoid error-prone, time-consuming manual data upload. Moreover, you do not need to copy-paste your product data in order to adjust it for EPREL’s taxonomy.

Uploading products to EPREL via Gepard PIM is way easier.

1. Just go to the Import tab in the menu and click on the already predefined EPREL import configuration.
2. Then, drag and drop your file in the special form or browse it from your laptop.
3. To proceed, click Upload.
4. Next products are validated and saved in Gepard PIM as a separate catalog.
5. After that, browsed products will be automatically registered or updated in the EPREL database.
6. Once the registration is complete, you will receive a notification email, and files in the EPREL database will be ready for download.

To get prepared EPREL labels and files, go to the Export tab in the menu and click on the EPREL connector. This is an already predefined EPREL configuration that enables you automatically download data from the EPREL database.

If you browse a few product types, you can select the necessary catalog and mark which label types you need to download, define whether you need a product sheet and product fiche for those products, and in what language. You can receive the link to the archive via email or directly download it from the Gepard PIM dashboard. If you want to get EPREL labels just for a few products from the catalog, simply enter their ids in the list, validate the inserted id’s accuracy and then download them.

Gepard has proven experience in building a connector to the EPREL and already helped clients to upload data to the EPREL database.

If you need to upload your data to EPREL, please, request an EPREL connection setup! https://gepard.io/tips-tricks/eprel-energy-label-explained

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