Fridges store beer, milk ...and energy

Canberra Times
Wednesday 14/1/2009 Page: 3

For most people, talk of "green" fridges might conjure tip images of hygiene disasters in scungy student flats. But Australian researchers have come tip with a green fridge which is not on the nose. They have invented a device which allows household fridges to run more easily off solar or wind energy. This could slash their greenhouse gas emissions - and could make renewable energy more usable as well.

Fridges switch themselves on and off regularly as they keep their temperature between 2 and 4 degrees. The CSIRO invention hooks up all the fridges in an area electronically. They then "talk" to each other, and to renewable energy suppliers, about when is the best time to crank up the compressor and cool themselves down. So when there is plenty of solar energy available, the fridges switch themselves on. And when the clouds roll in, they switch themselves off.

Engineer Sara West, who helped develop the device at CSIRO's research centre in Newcastle, said using the humble fridge to store renewable energy was exciting. "A lot of people are surprised to hear that they can use [their fridge] for this kind of storage, usually they're pretty interested," Mr West said. One of the biggest obstacles to the widespread use of renewable energy is its reliability - it does not provide a baseload supply like coal-fired power stations. Finding ways to store renewable energy would help address the issue, Mr West said.

The "green fridge" was one way of doing it, in the form of thermal energy - or cold. The system was foolproof and would not lead to the milk going off. The CSIRO invention is a small box which can be attached to existing fridges. The organisation hopes to roll out a trial version of the system, and said it was possible that one day all fridges would come equipped with the device.