Environmental and economic assessment of a low energy consumption household refrigerator

Abstract

Energy consumption is the biggest obstacle in the economic growth of a country. In recent years, Turkey has imported around at the rate of three-quarters of its total energy demand. Upon the past 10-years running, Turkey paid nearly half a trillion dollars for its total energy bill. The big share of energy consumption has emerged from buildings. Therefore, energy savings have great importance, particularly in the buildings. A refrigerator is responsible for the most dominant electrical energy consumption rate with 32% in a house. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel household refrigerator design for reducing energy consumption. In the proposed design, the necessary air for the cooling process will be provided from outdoor ambient in appropriate weather condition. The compressor work will, thus, be decreased via this way, and contribute to a reduction in energy consumption. The results indicated that this system in 63 provinces can be effectively used between 1 and 4 months and help to reduce 36 million $ in Turkish electric energy bill with the use of only 1 year period. Additionally, a reduction of approximately 850,000 tons of CO2 annually in Turkey can be achieved by applying the proposed design in this study. Hereby, Turkey can contribute not only to be sustained economic growth but also to reduce harmful gas emissions arising from electricity generation methods in the country.

Keywords

• Energy saving
• Carbon emission
• Electrical energy consumption
• Household refrigerator
• Turkey’s energy balance