Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/05/frozen-sunshine.html
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the “secret” is that an upright freezer used as a fridge is massively more efficient in storing “cold” than a household fridge, assuming you buy something decent and not walmart’s lowest model with no insulation
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You mean a “horizontal, chest freezer” instead of “upright freezer” right?
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ah yes sorry, tired brain, implying door on top instead of side so all the cold stays in, and much more insulation
I’ve always wanted to replace my fridge with one to save power but I rent and place is tiny
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This would be great for a fridge that lives in a garage, cabin or shed. Not that i have property to try this out at but this is pretty interesting
The Fridge0… effectively stores sunshine as coldness
[Takes bong rip]
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There are no specifications on the website…I wonder how much thermal mass was added to the chest freezer and how much space is left for food.
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A nice idea, to use some cold storage because it’s cheaper than batteries. 1KW solar panels is quite a lot though.
I have 900W, which means six panels covering all the roof surface I have available. Which is enough(*) to run a fridge as long as I do this same trick ‘manually’(**) on less sunny days. (well, during the summer, that is. In winter the solar panels hardly bring in enough juice to power a few led lamps. But then who needs a fridge in the wintertime :-).
(*) actually the solar panels are enough on most days, battery storage is by far the most expensive part of off-grid solar installations.
(**) manually means we fill about half the fridge with waterbottles and we turn it off when the sun goes down and on again in the morning. This doesn’t really keep it cold enough, but succeeds in keeping our vegetables and dairy more or less fresh for a few days in the warm weather. No meat except on shopping day during the summertime 
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Same here, but I’ve also speculated whether I could “technically” extract the compressor workings on an existing front-loader (most preferably used) and rearrange them to sit properly upright within a front-loaded fridge that “technically” sits on its back with legs to provide space for the heat to dissipate, if the heat doesn’t rise up against the shell before it escapes.
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“I found some plastic tubs that fit into my fridge well, and filled them with water.
The thermal mass is 17 gallons in size.
It uses around 1/3rd of the space in my 8.7 cubic foot chest freezer.”
It’s all on the website, just not terribly well collated; you have to click around a bit to find it.
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Thanks! Plus some characters.
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