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0.1 kWh/day Refrigerator |
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| By Steve Balogh in Conservation, Green Living, How To, Tech Innovations | October 4, 2006 | ||
I guess that this “hack” from a chest freezer to a super-efficient refrigerator has been around for a year or so (2005). This just proves that you have to poke around to find something good, and when you do share it with others. (I wonder if the folks from path to freedom have seen this one yet.)
I found Mt. Best via farmlet, 2 great new sites to bookmark (new to me anyways), both out of NZ.
Here’s what they have to say about their fridge:
” My chest fridge (Vestfrost freezer turned into a fridge) consumes about 0.1 kWh a day. It works only about 2 minutes per hour. At all other times it is perfectly quiet and consumes no power whatsoever. My wind/solar system batteries and power-sensing inverter simply love it.
It is obvious that a truly energy efficient fridge does not cost any more money than a mediocre one. It actually costs less. It also has extra features, such as digital temperature display that gives you full control on the temperature settings inside.”
For the electronically inclined, Mt. Best has a link to a .pdf file with detailed information on how to make your own thermostat.
It is innovations like these that make you think, hmmm… maybe people that are “running things” aren’t that smart. If someone can hack a efficient freezer and cut 90% of an appliances energy use, what other appliances could be improved upon? I love that there are people in this world that are not satisfied with the status quo, and instead of waiting for a new energy efficient model to come out, are just building their own.
Here is the proper link to the Mt. Best post: Chest Fridge
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Matt Mayer said,
I’ve been oogling over that since I saw it too. It’s great that they sell an easy solution with the plug in adapter.
From what I can tell you could build this thing was about half what a normal energy star refridgerator would cost. That’s smart thinking.
Great information.
Alexa said,
We just bought a small chest freezer for $220 at Lowes and I added a $60 thermostat to turn it into a refrigerator. It’s not the most efficient freezer out there, but we needed it in a hurry so we went for convenience. The Energy Star label says will use 280 kWh/year (as a freezer). An efficient refrigerator uses more like 400 kWh/year. A typical refrigerator uses 800-1100 kWh/year.
Today it was sitting on the front porch in the shade with a high temperature of about 80 degrees outside. According to my Kill-A-Watt meter, in 10 hours the new fridge used 0.10 kWh. That would be 0.24 kWh/day or 88 kWh/year. The results aren’t as good as the article, but still really good.
William said,
Actually Alexa, your results are about what the author of that article was expecting, his original experience was with an 18C ( 64 deg F) outside temp and he experience a slightly more than double power usage in the summer. which would basically be exactly what you got ( 240 watt a day ) , Id say thats really good!!
mackenzie madison said,
this article is very helpful. energy efficient stuff are what we need these days. great innovation!