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Abstract
The growing concerns over global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions have pushed the appliance industry to further improve energy efficiency of its products. Refrigerator-freezers (RF), as one of the major home appliances, consume about one-fifth of the electricity in a household, and its life expectancy could be as long as 10–15 years. In response to future stricter regulations, several design options were considered for improving the energy efficiency of a conventionally designed domestic RF. The options, such as insulation improvements obtained by using vacuum insulation panels (VIPs), energy saving defrost control, and high-efficiency compressors were examined in a prototype RF
The energy consumption of the original 1997 production refrigerator-freezer was selected as the baseline in order to compare the measured energy savings of each option and the combined options on the prototype refrigerator-freezer. This study has reached a goal to develop a prototype that has an energy consumption rate of 20% less than the baseline model.