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I've been testing my freezer with a kill-a-watt.
Here are some results for those interested.
Igloo - 5.1 Cu. Ft. Chest Freezer
The energy star sticker on the fridge says it uses 172 kWh a year or .471 per day - so I'm going to see if I can get to that.
Spoiler - yes. Overall I give this fridge a passing grade.
I'm in Texas - the weather has been surprisingly moderate.
The fridge is sitting on my patio in the shade - probably averaging around 80-84 degrees.
(All these figures are for 24 hour period in kWh.)
Bringing the freezer down to temp the first day, with multiple bottles of water, took 1.5.
On setting 4 the fridge used about .6. On 7, 6.45.
Anytime I added a bottle of water the fridge took approximately .1 more
When I moved the temp setting down to 1 the fridge finally gave me around .45. This with about 6 quart bottles of water. Everything stayed frozen fine.
I put the freezer on a mechanical timer and had it run an hour every 4 hours. It used .3. So, in a quarter of the time on, it used half the kWh. During this I also noticed considerable 'icing' - seems doing this is a recipe for freezer burn. Probably not good for the freezer either, generally. At the end of 24 hours everything was still frozen however.
Then I hooked it up to my 155ah battery/inverter, which has been sitting for about a week. The SoC when I started was 12.84v. I ran it for 12 hours. At that point, the SoC was 12.36. Interestingly, the kWh was .36, so it looks like using the inverter/battery used about 1/4 more kWh which confirms the point Mike90250 made.
Long story short, as those warned me, my system is too small. I'm going to leave the freezer in the garage and fill it more than half with bottled water. I'll use the battery as backup (and keep it floated periodically with a noco ac charger), in case our grid goes down again (twice the last 6 months). If the grid goes down I'll use the bottled water to keep a cooler cool for items in the main fridge. I figure if push comes to shove I can keep the freezer on its feet for maybe 24/36 hours without solar. I can still bring the battery out back and use the panels to charge as best they can.
The panels are charging a 35ah battery now, and it seems a lot more comfortable - I run it down at night with lights and fans to about 12.6v. It floats by about 11am to noon. I run the fans in the afternoon on full throttle - 'for free' (this is the most intriguing part of my solar adventure thus far - how to use that wasted energy effectively).
It's been a fun experiment. Cheers, Paul
Here are some results for those interested.
Igloo - 5.1 Cu. Ft. Chest Freezer
The energy star sticker on the fridge says it uses 172 kWh a year or .471 per day - so I'm going to see if I can get to that.
Spoiler - yes. Overall I give this fridge a passing grade.
I'm in Texas - the weather has been surprisingly moderate.
The fridge is sitting on my patio in the shade - probably averaging around 80-84 degrees.
(All these figures are for 24 hour period in kWh.)
Bringing the freezer down to temp the first day, with multiple bottles of water, took 1.5.
On setting 4 the fridge used about .6. On 7, 6.45.
Anytime I added a bottle of water the fridge took approximately .1 more
When I moved the temp setting down to 1 the fridge finally gave me around .45. This with about 6 quart bottles of water. Everything stayed frozen fine.
I put the freezer on a mechanical timer and had it run an hour every 4 hours. It used .3. So, in a quarter of the time on, it used half the kWh. During this I also noticed considerable 'icing' - seems doing this is a recipe for freezer burn. Probably not good for the freezer either, generally. At the end of 24 hours everything was still frozen however.
Then I hooked it up to my 155ah battery/inverter, which has been sitting for about a week. The SoC when I started was 12.84v. I ran it for 12 hours. At that point, the SoC was 12.36. Interestingly, the kWh was .36, so it looks like using the inverter/battery used about 1/4 more kWh which confirms the point Mike90250 made.
Long story short, as those warned me, my system is too small. I'm going to leave the freezer in the garage and fill it more than half with bottled water. I'll use the battery as backup (and keep it floated periodically with a noco ac charger), in case our grid goes down again (twice the last 6 months). If the grid goes down I'll use the bottled water to keep a cooler cool for items in the main fridge. I figure if push comes to shove I can keep the freezer on its feet for maybe 24/36 hours without solar. I can still bring the battery out back and use the panels to charge as best they can.
The panels are charging a 35ah battery now, and it seems a lot more comfortable - I run it down at night with lights and fans to about 12.6v. It floats by about 11am to noon. I run the fans in the afternoon on full throttle - 'for free' (this is the most intriguing part of my solar adventure thus far - how to use that wasted energy effectively).
It's been a fun experiment. Cheers, Paul
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