'Green Fridge' For Future

Friday, March 5, 2010, 11:44

To rescue planet earth and reduce greenhouse gas emission, Australian researchers have developed a new device that allows the fridge to run on solar power and wind power.

This is a step taken to encourage the usage of renewable energy, which enables the fridge to switch on and off by themselves in order to maintain the temperature between 2 to 4 degree.

The device developed by engineer Sam West and team, connects all the fridges in an area electronically. The machines 'communicate' with each other as well as the renewable energy source and decide on the best time to either turn 'on' the compressor and cool themselves.

According to the sunny or cloudy weather conditions, the fridge switch themselves 'on' or 'off'. This could be a breakthrough in the field of renewable energy and the engineer Sam West, who helped develop the device at CSIRO's research centre in Newcastle is very excited about it.

"A lot of people are surprised to hear that they can use (their fridge) for this kind of storage, usually they're pretty interested," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted West, as saying.

However the major challenge for the machine remains its reliability, but West has already suggested methods to store renewable energy. The 'green fridge' manages utilize the stored thermal energy or the cold. The organization is positive about its trial version and predict that such a feature would soon become a thing of common use in the near future.