The Nicro Solar Fridge Fan promises to improve the efficiency of your refrigerator by up to 40%. The idea is to attach it to the back of your fridge and let it blow air across the coils to help it use less energy and cool better. Does anyone know whether this is likely to work? It’s featured on a marine site, so maybe it’s only for boats and camping type fridges? Interesting. £72.25.
Fridge fan increase your refrigerators cooling efficiency by up to 40%. The fan has been engineering to move just the right amount of air through the refrigerators coils to help it work better and use less energy. * Runs on solar power will not drain battery. * Runs fastest when you need it the most during the heat of the day. * Highly sensitive solar cell runs fan even during overcast conditions.
If a fridge costs about �30 a year to run, at �72.25 a shot this device is going to take about 6 years before you start saving money assuming it delivers the full 40% reduction in running costs.
That’s assuming that the device gets enough light for 24 hours a day over those 6 years. If it is doesn’t get any light at night you may as well double that to 12 years.
That’s a long time to wait for a return and I bet it’s only guaranteed for 1 year.
Do correct me if I’m wrong!
Don’t you think that fridge manufacturers would have already thought of this? i mean, energy star ratings are very competitive these days and with the green is cool movement going on, even more pressure is on manufacturers to reduce energy usage.
so my advice: skip the fan. clean out (dust off) your coils and make sure that the fridge has the manufacturers recommended space on all sides. optimize the air flow inside of the fridge by arranging things right and taking plastic bags out.
that really is the greenist thing to do.
If your refridgerator is getting enough sunlight to run this fan well enough to cool the coils, then you need to eliminate the thermal gain by moving the fridge out of direct sunlight.
Great answers all.
Reading ’em, my take is the answer to your question is ‘yes, but for how long and hence is it worth it?’. This is where reliability enters the enviROI assessment. You can opt to ‘lose’ money but still ‘help’ the environment, but the question becomes more whether the thing will last long enough to do even the latter.
I also wonder what form the cells take. Having rushed out to Maplins to buy all sorts of ‘solar gizmos’ in the past, like ‘low energy/long life bulbs’ I am now aware there are cells that are not very efficient and don’t last very long, and then much more robust, effective… and longer lasting versions. ‘Yer pays yer money…’ And the whole solar electric area seems to be evolving daily, with high efficiency, flexible panels and stuff coming on stream, and with luck into viable commercial, mass (hence low cost) production.
Finally, as you indicate, there’s also where it gets mounted to get maximum sun (not looking great here this morning) on an exterior face, and how that cable is brought to the unit.
Of course, I write this as one whose fridge is set into a row of others, under a worktop, and hence am now pondering* how to improve the circulation – so good share.
*The point on dust clogging the coils is well taken. Maybe a series of jets would help both cool and clear constantly?
Must be for LPG fridges, the ones in caravans, and boats. Saving power her is less a money thing, but rather to stretch out your gas reserves as long as possible. Don’t want the BBQ stuff to get bad, do you?
how green does a fridge need to run at , commercial one run at over 350 $ a year now if some invented a greener fridge and cut cost to 80% now that would be the greatest of them all, i been working on developing a green fridge for over a year it was stumbled on when i dismentle a few fridges and yet it stay very cold in that room and i look for the source and i was suprise of what it was! i think that i made a connection in the rong place and i did not even know it was frozen to ice to about -10 celcius and the fridge was apart with other parts that i added to it i am looking into building them now and seeling them worlwide and gave it the name global cooling i think that i am on a break trough with science…