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19 Eco-friendly fridge designs made to save energy

Solar-powered refrigerator

If it’s too hot outside, you can never think about turning off your fridge. However, since they are on almost all the time, fridges contribute significantly to your electricity bill. Furthermore, unlike other gadgets, with fridges, it is also quite difficult to employ hacks to reduce their electricity consumption. Nevertheless, by opting for eco-friendly fridge designs, we can significantly reduce this problem. You can find both branded and design in this. Let us check out 14 such sustainable refrigerator designs.

19 Eco-friendly fridge designs

Eco-friendly refrigerators play an exceedingly vital role in helping the environment and reducing any household’s energy consumption. These products are safe not only for the environment but also safe for you as they save your money and promotes an energy-efficient lifestyle.

Below is the list of 10 eco-friendly fridge designs made to save energy:

1) LG PANORAMA French Door Refrigerator

LG PANORAMA French Door RefrigeratorLG Panorama is an environmental friendly fridge. It uses a very highly efficient linear compressor that saves energy consumption. It is a French door and cooling plus technology trap the cooling maintains humidity level and keeps the food fresh for long. So even if your electricity goes out, don’t worry as your LG is still working.

2) Oceania: Fridge designed by Tez Patel

Oceania Fridge designed by Tez PatelTez Patel has conceived an eco-friendly refrigerator design that permits you to bank energy by using multiple sections. The hypothesis is that you don’t use your entire fridge at the same time. The design allows for sections that are not in use to be turned off automatically. This means you only use enough energy to cool the parts of the fridge you want to use.

3) 6596 Refrigerator from Kenmore

6596 Refrigerator KenmoreThis model has been certified with Energy Star Certification and has a pretty progressed cooling system along with an enhanced temperature management system. The refrigerator with Energy Star Certification uses 20 percent less energy as compared to other models which are not labeled with an Energy Star Logo. Less use of energy makes this fridge eco-friendly.

4) RF266ABPN Refrigerator from Samsung

RF266ABPN Refrigerator from SamsungAlthough it has a separate cooling compartment, yet it’s an Energy Star Certified refrigerator which will save your money by saving energy. It is facilitated with an alarm that alerts you when the door of the fridge is left ajar by mistake or is opened for more than 60 sec. Also like all other Energy Star Certified refrigerators, the fridge automatically switches to defrost mode which would also save energy.

5) CS 1601 from Liebherr

CS 1601 from Liebherr

Although CS 1601 is considered to be the luxury cooling machine, this fridge is also an Energy Star Refrigerator. The federal standard of energy consumption by this refrigerator is 542 kWh/year whereas the annual energy consumption is 433 kWh/year. Therefore 20 percent less consumption of electricity as compared to other non-energy star rater fridges.

6) Bosh B26FT70SNS

Bosh B26FT70SNSBosh has introduced its French Door Bottom-Freezer Fridge with Vita Fresh. It is an energy star qualified fridge and also includes Eco Control which helps in saving energy with handy and accessible outside controls.

7) Dacor Epicure EF36BNNFSS

Dacor Epicure EF36BNNFSSDacor Epicure has come up with French Door Bottom Refrigerator which congregates the 2008 Energy Star guidelines with a compressor which is 20 percent energy-efficient and utilizes less energy than the energy consumed by a 60 Watt light bulb. All this helps you in saving energy and your money too.

8) Kitchenaid KFIS25XVMS

Kitchenaid KFIS25XVMSKitchenaid with French door is an Energy Star certified fridge with a rating of 547 kWh/year. This is an energy-efficient model which includes an LCD dispenser display and a digital external control which makes it possible to make required adjustments without opening the door.

9) Maytag Ice20 MFI2670XEM

Maytag Ice20 MFI2670XEMIt’s an eco-friendly refrigerator featured with flexible storage space and temperature control drawers that provide a good storage place. This refrigerator like other energy star refrigerators uses less energy than a light bulb of 60-watt.

10) Sub- Zero BI-30UG

Sub- Zero BI-30UGIt’s a built-in refrigerator with glass doors. It’s an Energy Star Qualified refrigerator with $49 annual usage of energy. It uses less energy than a light bulb of 100-watt.

11) Oceania refrigerator

oseania fridge F2Q8E 2263
Ozone hole, melting glaciers, global warming! Here is Tez Patel’s answer to all this – Oceania- the intelligent and eco-friendly refrigerator that has replaced greenhouse gases like CFCs and the HFCs with non-polluting ways of cooling.

The refrigerator has four compartments. The three topmost compartments are cooled by magnetic refrigeration while the lowest one is cooled with the help of water and ceramic materials. The water used for cooling is stored in a small tank within the refrigerator and can be drained or reused. It has also done away with the traditional single door of a refrigerator and has separate ergonomic sliding drawers for every section. This reduces the loss of cold air from the section that is opened and also prevents the cold air of the compartments that are not being used from escaping, thereby increasing the efficiency of the system.

It is equipped with RFID technology that informs the user what items are there in the fridge and when they need to be replenished. It also lets the user know when hot food is placed in the fridge and turns off the sections that are not in use. Besides all this, the fridge is made of recycled material and disposed of in a biodegradable way.

Considering all these characteristics, Oceania definitely seems a big step towards green refrigeration and coupled with its looks it definitely qualifies as the smart and green way of cooling.

12) $50 non-electric Thermos-sized refrigerator

fridge YJgLw 69

Research indicates that more than one-sixth of the world population lacks access to electricity and hence refrigeration. Such places are also the most polluted, and because of the lack of basic infrastructure, residents of these places are even more prone to diseases. Since many of the vaccines used in the treatment of these diseases need to be kept cool, these people lack basic medication too.

A team at Stanford, including tech venture capitalist Adam Grosser, has developed a refrigerator that needs no electricity. The thermos-sized device works on the principles of thermodynamics and carries a refrigerant that is triggered when the device is heated and left to cool at room temperature. The device costs just $50 and can prove to be a boon for people living in underdeveloped countries.

13. Oceania Fridge: Shaped to delight the senses and pamper the planet
Oceania Fridge

Oceania, designed by Tez Patel tells you that going eco-friendly is not just important but also cool; and in the case of a refrigerator, that is all the more true. Using passive eco cooling and thermoelectric cooling, this eco fridge design does away with the use of CFCs and HFCs and that is something that is a must in every modern refrigerator. So I will not ponder too much on that and Ozone implications. The top three tiers of the fridge use magnetic refrigeration while the bottom section features an innovative passive cooling technology that uses water and ceramic materials for the purpose of cooling.

The fridge is connected to the water main just like a washing machine, which allows water to enter and stored in a reservoir within the fridge, passively cooling the compartment. The water can then be reused or drained. The conventional large fridge door has been replaced with full extension drawers, reducing cold air loss when opened. Using RFID technology, it informs the user what items are in the fridge, possible recipes, and your food’s sell by date. It also alarms the user when hot food is placed in the fridge, and automatically turns compartments off when not in use.

To top all that the fridge uses recycled material and is completely bio-degradable during the disposal process. The Oceania is truly one complete green cooling system that has as much style as substance. I think it may be has too much of substance.

14. Eco Tech: Eco friendly fridge with simple features saves your energy

Eco TechIt doesn’t matter how you contribute toward saving the environment from emissions or global warming. What matters is that you contribute by adopting any of the solutions available. Take the example of this fridge, which is counted among the top energy consuming appliances in America. Each time you open the door to look for the contents you need and then to pick it, you lose between 9 to 13 watt/hours. In simple words this amount can light a 60-watt bulb for 10 minutes. This happens because of the temperature loss that the fridge has to patch up after exposures to room temperature. Here is a model that incorporates some simple methods to prevent this energy loss.

First of all, wood material is added to the front instead of metal. You can customize this wooden surface according to the looks of your kitchen. Secondly, a glass door sets you free to locate the contents inside without opening the door. The model is divided into separate sections that make it possible to open only a single section at a time and create different atmospheres in the same fridge. An exhaust at the top of fridge keeps warm air moving up. Therefore, you can save some energy used by the fan to keep it from the cold air.

No doubt the fridge cuts some energy consumption, but more harmful aspects are still not considered. It will be more advantageous if something is done to reduce chlorofluoro carbon emissions, along with having the energy-saving features.

15. Eco Gadgets: Ice Cool Fridge works passively to reduce energy consumption

Ice Cool The future of the electricity grid is green, which actually means that in the future most of the power we will consume will come from renewable sources of energy like sun and wind. However, renewable energy generation comes with its own downsides and the grid will not be able to churn out a specific amount of power continuously. In addition to the grid, the appliances we use in our homes daily have to transform and find their own way to buffer demand.

The Ice Cool Fridge by Daniel Mason is showing what the future appliances might be like. The refrigerator buffers demand by storing cooling power for periods of passive running. The designer believes that the refrigerator is so efficient that 5000 units would save one power station and another one will be saved when these units will run passively.

The intuitive design includes laid-out drawers, with a large drawer designed toward the inside of the door. The ice compartment at the top and the salad drawer at the bottom make its design quite similar to any other refrigerator on the market today.

16. Eco Gadgets: Shift Refrigerator reduces energy use by preventing outflow of cool air

Shift Of the total amount of energy that a normal house consumes, a major fraction goes into appliances such as refrigerators that remain connected throughout the day. The Shift Refrigerator by industrial designer Yong-jin Kim allows homeowners to save energy by simply preventing the outflow of cool air.

Whenever refrigerators are opened, some amount of cool air is released and replaced by warm air, thereby making the refrigerator consume more energy. The Shift on the other hand is equipped with a smaller compartment, using which the homeowners can minimize the outflow of cool air to reduce the amount of energy the refrigerator consumes.

17. Eco Gadgets: Solus sustainable refrigerator avoids food waste

Solus by Nathan CookeHow many times have you bought food items that were already present in your refrigerator? I guess the number would be more than once a week. This means the food items you bought earlier and the energy used to keep them cool is wasted more than four times a month and there is nothing much you can do about it, at least not with the refrigerator you’re using. The Solus by Nathan Cooke is a refrigerator that not only helps you save money in purchasing redundant food items but also ensures that whatever waste your kitchen generates is put to good use.

The Solus is an open compartment refrigerator that lets you see the food items present with ease. The refrigerator is designed to be energy-efficient and its body would be made of recyclable materials. The plastic components commonly found in all refrigerators are replaced with biodegradable materials in the Solus. With a built-in composter, the refrigerator also ensures that all your kitchen waste is used to grow fresh vegetables in your backyard.

The entire body of the Solus is not fixed permanently and individual components can easily be removed for washing to replacing with a new one in case the component has been broken. The open compartment design not only ensures that you don’t buy what you already have but also avoids stale air. The excess heat from the dual compressors is channeled into the composter, easing the composting process. The designer states that the once manufactured the Solus will definitely cost much more than conventional Energy Star rated refrigerators, but a user will be able to recoup that extra cost by saving cash that usually is spend on purchasing unused food items.

18. Non-electric Bio Robot Refrigerator uses odor-free gel to cool food items

Bio RobotA refrigerator is not only the most frequently used appliance in a household, but is one of the most energy consuming appliance as well. In an effort to rethink conventional designs for a futuristic appeal, industrial designer Yuriy Dmitriev has unveiled a gel-filled refrigerator concept dubbed the Bio Robot Refrigerator.

The design is one of the 25 semifinalists in the Electrolux Design Lab competition, which challenged entrants to redesign conventional appliances for the future. The Bio Robot Refrigerator is entirely different from the boxes we use today. The zero-energy concept relies on a biopolymer gel that uses luminescence to preserve food items.

All the user has to do is to shove food items into the non-sticky odorless gel creating a separate capsule for every product. Since the concept doesn’t include any motor or compressor, over 90 percent of the appliance is actually usable space.

19. Solar-powered refrigerator clings to wall on the outside to chill food

Solar-powered refrigeratorRefrigerators normally occupy a lot of space in your kitchen, not to mention the amount of energy they consume. Industrial designer Nicolas Hubert has proposed a solution to end both the problems, while adding some more. The designer has come up with a concept refrigerator that runs on clean solar energy. However, as you might have expected, the refrigerator needs to be installed outside your window to harness energy.

Christened the External Refrigerator, the system chills food naturally in cold weather and at night, but when it’s sunny outside, solar panels power the built-in cooling system. While the concept helps free some valuable space in your house and consumes no grid electricity, it adds a couple of new problems, which makes it impractical.

Since this refrigerator will be placed outside the window, which might not always be present in your kitchen, to get food items you’ll have to throw open the window each time and if it’s too hot outside, you’ll be letting in more heat into your house which eventually will increase the burden on the cooling systems.

Moreover, considering the fact that more and more people have started living in skyscrapers, even an apple falling out of this refrigerator from the 30th floor of a building would hit somebody down like a grenade. It would have made more sense if the solar panel would have been placed outside the window and connected to the refrigerator placed in a convenient location indoors.

Final Words

Household appliances use 20-25 percent of your home energy, wherein maximum electricity is consumed by the refrigerators. It’s especially in summers that we keep our refrigerators on “cool maximum” mode. Replace the old refrigerators with eco-friendly fridges in order to save energy.

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