Technology Opportunity: Novel Efficient Refrigerator with Cold Energy Storage Enabling Demand Flexibility

Technology Summary Household refrigerators typically consume 1.5–2.0kWh of electricity per day, and more than 100 million refrigerators are used in US homes, resulting in significant primary energy consumption and carbon emissions.

This technology is a novel household refrigerator that uses advanced evaporators with phase change material (PCM)–based long-duration cold energy storage, PCM heat conduction enhancement using a metal foam material, direct-contact defrosting technology, and a low global warming potential (GWP) alternative refrigerant, enabling efficiency improvement in excess of 20% and peak load shifting.

Description This technology is a novel refrigerator proposed to replace 100 million current refrigerators in the U.S. It uses advanced evaporators with phase change material (PCM)–based long-duration cold energy storage, PCM heat conduction enhancement using a metal foam material, direct-contact defrosting technology, and a low global warming potential (GWP) alternative refrigerant to achieve flexible load demand management and transformational efficiency improvement in excess of 20%.

This will enable a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions and almost 100% load shift from daytime to nighttime operation. The PCM is organic based and can be integrated with evaporator coils and keep temperature constant for fresh and frozen food. It only requires one cycle on, and one cycle off, unlike current technology that cycles on and off repeatedly throughout the day.

Replacing all conventional refrigerators in homes and commercial buildings with the proposed novel refrigerator would save up to 167 TBtu of primary energy consumption and reduce CO2 emissions by 7.2 million tons. This replacement would directly support a smooth transition toward meeting the ambitious goals of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 while creating millions of clean energy jobs.

Additionally, the novel refrigerator’s load shifting capability enables approximately 0.7%–1.0% of daytime electricity demand to be shifted to nighttime operation nationwide.

Benefits Sustainable, achieves 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions Efficiency improvement achieves reduced energy needs greater than 20% Almost 100% load shift from daytime to nighttime operation, saving energy and costs Helps achieve goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 Applications and Industries Refrigeration, residential and commercial Transportation refrigeration Contact To learn more about this technology, email partnerships@ornl.gov or call 865-574-1051.