ENERGY SAVING IN STAR MARKED REFRIGERATORS AND EFFECT OF DOOR OPENING FREQUENCY ON ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF RESIDENTIAL REFRIGERATORS

Bhabaranjan Sarmah

Abstract: The resurgent economy of India is in need of energy as it is one of the vital requirements for a sustainable development. So, it is obvious that India will need a huge hike in energy to fulfill its requirements in the next decades. But, there is a large gap between the demand and supply. All India average energy shortfall is 9% and peak demand shortfall is 14% [O’Neill 2009]. .Loss of electricity in India, due to transmission, is around 24% during 2011-12 [Energy statistics 2013]. Energy saved at the point of use is equivalent to 2.5 times the energy produced [Deshpande V.M.,2011]. As such sincere effort is essential in every aspect wherever there is a possibility of saving energy. Refrigerators are huge consumer of electrical energy. In India, 13 % of residential electricity is used by refrigeration systems [BEE, Energy and Building, 2014 ]. There is very little study on the effect of use of energy star marked refrigerators on actual reduction of energy consumption, especially in developing countries. Another important factor which contributes to the increase in consumption of electrical energy is door opening pattern in refrigerators. But there is very little study on the effect of door opening frequency in refrigerators on energy consumption especially in field condition. In the present work experimental study was conducted by keeping the door of a 5 star marked refrigerator open at different frequency but same total opening time. The result showed that frequent opening of door leads to substantial increase in energy consumption and increase in frequency is directly related to increase in energy consumption. The increase may be more than 100% if a door is opened for even 1 minute after every 3 minutes or the door is kept open (by mistake or so) for a very long period (90minutes)

Keywords: energy, efficiency, refrigerator, star marking, compressor, door opening, frequency

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0402095