Thanks for the great writeup :)

Somewhat relevant here - @lucy-kind recently led some cleanup of our structure around Enumerations and enumerated values, to make tidier use of a type hierarchy. We've applied that idea to national code lists too, e.g. take a look at
https://schema.org/NonprofitType and https://schema.org/NLNonprofitType in https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/blob/main/data/ext/pending/issue-2543.ttl - in theory we can now collect such definitions from a variety of countries / territories / regions. There will doubtless be open questions on how exactly to handle this in markup but I think we have a stronger foundation for regionalized enumerations now (also thanks @rjw for the implementation).

It is an excellent idea to use country (or region) specific enum types for energy efficiency ratings, since for example the EU has a very different energy efficiency scale (A+++ - G, depending on the product category) than Korea or China (1-5).

We could introduce a new enumeration /EnergyEfficiencyClass with sub-enum types /EUEnergyEfficiencyClass, /KEAEnergyEfficiencyClass (for Korea, also used in other countries such as Cambodia), etc.

A complete example for a /energyConsumptionDetails property under a /Product could then look as follows:

  "energyConsumptionDetails": {
    "@type": "EnergyConsumptionDetails",
    "energyClass": "https://schema.org/EUEnergyEfficiencyClassA1Plus",
    "energyScaleMin": "https://schema.org/EUEnergyEfficiencyClassD",
    "energyScaleMax": "https://schema.org/EUEnergyEfficiencyClassA1Plus",
    "energyLabelImage": "https://www.example.com/energy_label_12345.jpg",
    "datasheet": {
      "@type": "ItemList",
      "itemListOrder": "http://schema.org/ItemListOrderAscending",
      "itemListElement": [
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 1,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "supplier",
            "value": "my tv brand"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 2,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "model",
            "value": "AA-12345Z"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 3,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "energy efficiency class",
            "value": "A+"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 4,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "visible screen diagonal",
            "value": "189 cm (75 inch)"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 5,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "power consumption (in operation)",
            "value": "361 W"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 6,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "energy consumption",
            "value": "543 kWh per year, based on the power consumption of the television operating 4 hours per day for 365 days. The actual energy consumption will depend on how the television is used."
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 7,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "standby/off power consumption",
            "value": "0,50 W"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 8,
          "item": {
            "@type": "PropertyValue",
            "name": "screen resolution",
            "value": "7680 x 4210 pixels (H x V)"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  

The above example defines the energy efficiency class in the EU ("A+" in this case, using a proposed enum value /EUenergyEfficiencyClassA1Plus) as well as the scale for the particular product category (A+ - D for televisions). The example also gives a link to an image of an energy efficiency label (example) as well as the product fiche (datasheet) following the EU regulation (link).

Another example, this time modeling the EnergyStar rating used in the US and many other countries could look as follows:

  "energyConsumptionDetails": {
    "@type": "EnergyConsumptionDetails",
    "energyClass": "https://schema.org/EnergyStarCompliant,
    "energyLabelImage": "https://www.example.com/energystar_label.jpg"
  }

A topic for further discussion could be to support multiple energy label images and product data sheets per /energyConsumptionDetails instance, with each image and data sheet tagged with the language and/or country it applies to:

• Different countries may have different labeling requirements, even if using the same energy rating standard.
  • (example)
  • (literature review)
• Multiple Product fiches (datasheets) in different languages are common in the EU

I've committed a design that @alex-jansen (from Google Shopping) and I have been working on.

It is fairly straightforward: a type representing EnergyConsumptionDetails, a property linking it from a Product, a property of the new type with enumerated values. Also an optional (EU-oriented) pair of properties of EnergyConsumptionDetails indicating maximum and minimum enumerated values. The enumerated structures make use of subtyping, so that there is a different Enumeration structure for Energy Star, and for EU's system. We have gone with Energy Star as an enumeration rather than a simple boolean, for consistency, since there are other systems (e.g. in China, Korea) that are also enumerated, and it seemed better to have a common pattern. The max/min construction is for use in the EU scheme, where it is often required to indicate the applicable range for a given product. For it to make sense, the enumeration needs to be understood as ordered; this is not currently explicit in schema.org's enumeration system can be concluded from reading the specific definitions that we give.

Background reading:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Energy_Label
• https://www.energy.or.kr/renew_eng/energy/appliances/labeling.aspx
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Star
• http://www.kemco.or.kr/nd_file/kemco_eng/KoreaEnergyStandards&Labeling.pdf
• https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/economics-dam/documents/Projekts/EnergyLabelReview.pdf

Draft staged: https://webschemas.org/EnergyConsumptionDetails

We should probably adopt @lucy-kind 's proposal and rename the enumeration to end in *Enumeration, but that leaves the question of whether to retain use of 'category' in hasEnergyEfficiencyCategory (the actual domain terminology seems to use 'class' heavily but that's a poor fit for us as 'class' at schema.org is the same thing as a type, i.e. a fundamental modeling primitive).

This was published in release #10.0 (https://www.schema.org/EnergyConsumptionDetails)

For this to make sense for the EU labels at least don't we also need to know the year that the label was issued?

I had two new appliances that were simultaneously issued with A++ and D labels (or similar) because of the rebasing for those categories.

It might also make sense to have slots for at least the annual energy consumption and an optional URL for the full fiche/document?

Or do I need to read this thread from the top properly to find out why I'm wrong? B^>

Rgds

Damon