{"id":4317,"date":"2019-09-01T22:15:57","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T20:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/?p=4317"},"modified":"2019-09-01T22:52:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T20:52:53","slug":"off-grid-solar-powered-zero-battery-refrigerator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/2019\/09\/off-grid-solar-powered-zero-battery-refrigerator.html","title":{"rendered":"Off-Grid, Solar-Powered, Zero-Battery Refrigerator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/off-grid-fridge.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4320\" src=\"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/off-grid-fridge-500x432.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"432\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/off-grid-fridge-500x432.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/off-grid-fridge.jpeg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/joeyh.name\">Joey Hess<\/a> has designed, built and tested an off-grid, solar powered fridge, with no battery bank. Using an inexpensive chest freezer with a few modifications, the fridge retains cold overnight and through rainy periods. The set-up consists of a standard chest freezer, an added thermal mass, an inverter, and computer control. He writes:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The battery bank is a large part of the cost of a typical off-grid fridge installation. It needs to be sized to run the fridge overnight, as well as for several days of poor weather. Cheaper batteries only last 3-5 years, and longer lasting batteries are correspondingly expensive; either way a battery bank for an off-grid fridge is extremely expensive over the lifetime of the fridge. By storing solar power in the form of cold, I can avoid the battery bank expense and environmental footprint. The only battery power it needs is enough to turn it off cleanly when the solar panels stop producing &#8212; a few minutes of power instead of days &#8212; and a small amount for its computer control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Joey&#8217;s off-grid, solar powered, zero-battery-use fridge has successfully made it through spring, summer, fall, and winter:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;ve proven that it works. I&#8217;ve not gotten food poisoning, though I did lose half a gallon of milk on one super rainy week. I have piles of data, and a whole wiki documenting how I built it. I&#8217;ve developed 3 thousand lines of control software. It purrs along without any assistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/joeyh.name\/blog\/entry\/fridge_0.1\/\">Fridge 0.1<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/joeyh.name\/blog\/entry\/fridge_0.2\/\">Fridge 0.2<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/house.joeyh.name\/fridge.html\">Fridge data<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/fridge0.branchable.com\">Fridge Wiki<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/2019\/07\/living-energy-farm.html\">\u201cDaylight Drive\u201d DC Solar Power at the Living Energy Farm<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thanks to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rscmbbng\">Roel Roscam Abbing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joey Hess has designed, built and tested an off-grid, solar powered fridge, with no battery bank. Using an inexpensive chest freezer with a few modifications, the fridge retains cold overnight and through rainy periods. The set-up consists of a standard chest freezer, an added thermal mass, an inverter, and computer control. He writes:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[68,74,12,48,315,49,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4317"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4323,"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4317\/revisions\/4323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}