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dadoes

Replacing Refrigerators to Save Energy

dadoes
16 years ago

(Also posted in the Money Saving Tips forum)

It's often said that much energy can be saved by replacing a refrigerator that's 10 or more years old. My neighbor wanted to find out whether the advice is reasonable. His refrigerator is a typical Whirlpool top-freezer unit about 18 to 20 cu ft, about 21 years old. I have a 1997 KitchenAid top-freezer in my garage, also about 20 cu ft. Inside my house I have a 2004 GE Profile Arctica, rated as 23 cu ft.

The neighbor bought a Watt-A-Meter to find out how much power his refrigerator uses. He brought it over to test mine. I don't know if the test periods include any defrost cycles.

My GE used 1.83 KWH in a 24-hr period. I checked the meter when the compressor was running, it reported between 83 and 94 watts. That's right, less than a 100-watt light bulb! Opening the refrigerator section door shot the number up to 290 watts, there are four light bulbs inside.

My KitchenAid used 1.64 KWH in 24 hrs. Interesting. It's in a hot garage in south Texas, but is seldom opened. The freezer section is packed fairly full. The refrigerator section isn't full, primarily storing some 2-liter soft drink bottles and a few other items.

His Whirlpool used 3.86 KWH in 24 hrs. True, that's a bit more than double my GE ... but still is not an enormous consumption of energy. Far as I'm aware, the condensor has seldom, if ever, been cleaned, which I imagine cleaning the condensor would reduce the figure by at least a small degree.

Based on the local (current, summer) electric rate of $0.1438/KWH per my last bill (neighbor is on the same provider), a 30-day month costs

GE $7.89

KA $7.07

Whirlpool $16.65

Note that the winter rate is significantly less. Nov-Dec 2006 was $0.0845/KWH.

Figuring on the full summer rate, and estimating $1200.00 for a nice new GE SxS refrigerator, (if I've figured it correctly) it'd take 136.98 months for the electric bill savings to payback the $1200. That's 11.4 years. By that time, the new refrigerator would be OLD again and due for replacement. :-) Of course, it'd actually take longer when the lower winter rate is included. On the other hand, electric rates won't go anywhere but up.

But the neighbor is now skeptical as to the merits of replacing a working older refrigerator for no reason other than to save energy. Considering the energy costs involved in manufacturing new refrigerators and disposing of the old ones, the payback on an individual level seems to not be what the pundits are touting. On a global level, if EVERYBODY followed suit .... maybe.

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