Power Consumption of Absorption Fridge

[yefi]

I guess no-one would be privy to the power consumption of an absorption fridge of say about 30L? I recently purchased just one such good and the 65W heating element in it draws 84W from the wall. Blasted tarnations. With the thermostat kicking it on half the time that's about 45-50W avg. pwr. consumption.

Is this too high? It's about 394kWh/yr, but I see compressor fridges of 300L at only 300kWh/yr, so it seems way off.

[Dutchmm]

I looked at the stats for some refrigerators here. The numbers they are quoting suggest an annual consumption of ~1000 Kwh, for a 100l gross enclosure with an 11l freezer. Or did you mean a teeny tiny fridge?

[subsonik]

Dutchmm, those are absorption fridges, not compressor fridges. Absorption fridges are terribly energy-inefficient, their efficiency is easily 3x worse than compressor fridges.

An average 170l compressor fridge consumes about 180KWh a year. A decent one, about 120KWh a year. So 400KWh a year for just 30l is insane. Your fridge's consumption in just one year is probably higher than its purchase price.

[Dutchmm]

The Thetford fridges are absorption fridges, the kind yefi was asking about. I have to say I am the kind of electricity consumer who just pays the bills without looking at which appliances are ruining me - I even use an oven with a pyrolytic cleaning program - but I think I would notice if my fridge was costing me 5 times the annual average.

[yefi]

I looked at the stats for some refrigerators here. The numbers they are quoting suggest an annual consumption of ~1000 Kwh, for a 100l gross enclosure with an 11l freezer. Or did you mean a teeny tiny fridge?

Thanks for the link. Mine is a mini-fridge and I guess looking at those stats the power consumption isn't absurd. I heard ammonia absorption fridges were more efficient than peltiers which is why I bought one, a compressor being intolerable as this thing would be so close to me.

It is more or less solid state apart from the thermostat (which happens to annoy the hell out of me and which I think I will have to mod.)

[yefi]

And some photos of the offending fridge:



And yes, I am aware of the hole and did take my measurements before it was made.