New Refrigerator’s Impact on Power Consumption
One thing the Google Powermeter taught me over time was that our biggest energy gain would come through upgrading our refrigerator to a more efficient model. Our old one worked fine, but used more energy than a 2010 model of the same size and specs does.
We got around to upgrading ours after Carly donated our previous one to the Boys & Girls Club based on a tweet they sent out on March 9ththat was retweeted by the Heavy Table on their Tweet Rodeo asking if anyone had one they’d be willing to donate.
So, did the new fridge make a noticeable difference in power consumption? Yes. You can see it here in the dark green bars near the bottom of this chart:
The dark green bars represent “always on power” so things like refrigerators, clocks, and vampire power being consumed by TVs and other appliances.
As far as I can tell, it looks like our monthly power bill will drop by around $7/month because of this change. At that rate, the fridge will pay for itself through energy savings in a bit over 8 years. Faster if electricity costs rise, although the EIA isn’t projecting much increase in the next decade.
May 9th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Hey Ed–next time you do this kind of comparison, you should start with clean coils on your refrigerator. That way you’d get an equivalent comparison.
May 9th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
@Kirk, interesting point. Do you think coil cleaning have a measurable impact on energy consumption? I know it does in theory, but are you suggesting that it’s worth pulling out the fridge from time to time to clean the coils? If so, how often, and how do you clean yours?