We’ve talked a bit about Electrolux’s Design Lab 2008 contest already, but we wanted to highlight another finalist with huge potential: the flatshare fridge. While the idea is geared towards helping roommates keep track of their own food in the fridge, Treehugger points out the energy saving benefits of a compartmentalized fridge:
One way to rig it for energy savings is by programming each compartment for only the necessary temperature for the contents placed in that particular compartment and nothing more. Items that don’t need temperatures quite as cold as others could be separated.
Also, by having foods in separate compartments, releasing cold air upon opening it up to grab a snack could be minimized.
Finally, keeping items more tightly packed together to help out with keeping everything cold can reduce the amount of energy needed to run the units. Plus, the concept fridge is made of stackable compartments, so consumers can buy and plug in only the amount of space they need. Very cool.
Very cool indeed!
Treehugger: Compartmentalized Concept Refrigerator Cool Way to Keep Things Cold
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Heyhey, that looks pretty like the right fridge for my Dormity-room. :D
Greets Darren
October 1st, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Is running many small A/C compressors really going to contribute to more efficiency than one larger one? Something tells me that this isn’t particularly well thought out.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Matt points out one potential problem: if each module has its own cooling system, then this design is almost guaranteed to be energy-INefficient, not to mention the higher materials usage and selling price (in the example shown, you’d be buying four compressors instead of one).
But looking at the photo, it appears the bottom module may contain the refrigerating “guts.” If so, you have a different set of problems. First, how do you get the “cold” from the cooling module to the storage modules stacked above it? If this is a compressor-based or absorption system, you can’t just circulate refrigerant through additional sets of heat exchangers that somehow connect to pipes from the cooling unit. Those systems are completely and permanently sealed, so “plug’n'play” refrigeration is not, as far as I know, possible.
Circulate cold air? Well, maybe, but there are two problems with that. First, these mostly-enclosed storage modules don’t lend themselves to good air circulation. (Think: why do most refrigerators have wire shelves?) You’d have to bring cold air up a duct from the back of each module. That would take away usable space from the storage module’s interior. And it would have to be fan-forced, meaning still more power consumption–and constant noise.
But there’s more. Cold air isn’t enough, because for this concept to be really useful, you must allow both freezing and refrigeration in each of the storage modules. That means you must maintain a temperature of 0 degrees F *and* a temperature of 37 degrees F. in subsections that are less than an inch apart. This is very difficult to do without freezing your eggs or melting your ice. You can use insulation to separate the subsections, of course… but that wastes still more interior space.
Let’s talk about space. In a conventional refrigerator, a shelf subtracts only about a quarter inch from the usable interior space. But in this design, any module could be on the top or bottom, so each module has to have substantial insulation in its ceiling and floor. The result is that each of the three storage modules adds about four inches of needless insulation, increasing the overall size of the refrigerator. In short, this design offers much less usable space on the inside than a conventional fridge of the same exterior dimensions.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Energy-inefficient, space-inefficient, materials-inefficient… this design, as Matt said, was not well thought out.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:55 am