From the article:"I wonder why no company has thought of this easy way to cut energy use in fridges?"
I suspect they probably have thought of this. But to me, this is one of those ideas that looks good on paper. The obvious main problem here is usability. Freezers work in this configuration because everything you put in them roughly turns into bricks that stack on each other without damage. This fridge would need all kinds of little compartments and shelves to keep things like produce from going to the bottom and getting squashed.
In order to have a fridge with the same capacity as an upright fridge, I suspect you would need quite a bit of floor space. There are practical limits on how deep you can make a fridge without it being difficult to use. It's probably fine if you're a single person and don't have a lot of stuff. But what about for a family? Finally, many kitchens have a "spot" for a fridge, and anything that doesn't fit there, needs to go somewhere else. It's likely there likely isn't going to be enough floor space.
I'd think of a design like a file cabinet with every drawer being its own fridge. This way you can even set different temperatures. The stacking is variable so suitable models for every kitchen should be possible.
Draw fridges are available now in the UK and elsewhere (Google Images for "draw fridge" shows several different configurations.
I imagine a lot of the benefit is lost with a drawer as the air turbulence from opening the draw (like opening a large freezer lid quickly) will drag out the colder air. If you have to remove half the stuff (chest freezer) to get to what you need then the fridge will be open longer and the items removed will gain more heat energy from the surroundings. Could still be a net benefit though.
You could probably get away with one if you duct the cold air into each compartment, with a valve on each one. The valves would be opened and closed as needed to maintain the temperature in each compartment. When at least one is open, the compressor turns on; when all are closed, it shuts off.
I recall reading somewhere that they are more commmon in Japan. I can't find the link of that page, but it led me to a conversion someone did from an old chest freezer. http://green-change.com/2009/05/23/chest-fridge-conversion/ Based on their numbers it was ~10x more efficient.
No, I think the author is right when he says "you just need a way for drawers to slide up, so you can access the depths without leaning down into a huge box." I think it's a solvable design problem that could turn into a viable product with a bit of cleverness.
That doesn't solve the problem that the space commonly allocated to fridges in the vast majority of kitchens is vertical, not horizontal. It certainly wouldn't be workable in any of the flats I've ever lived in, only in spacious houses.
You just need a way for drawers to slide up, without using up the electricity saved by this change, or being too heavy. or using too large a counterweight system or being to weak.
How about an upright fridge with a glass inner-door?
If the problem is opening the fridge to browse, and a transparent fridge is too unsightly, then a transparent door with an outer door would allow browsing without blowing all the air away.
Otherwise, an upright fridge split vertically down the middle. You pull the whole compartment out and apart, like snake jaws on their side. You have two sides, each facing you, each able to be like a normal fridge door - with covered compartments. Each shallow enough for easy browsing, positioned well enough for reaching the back, deep enough to be useful.
How about a normal fridge, but with a small fan at the bottom that pushes the cold air into a bag before you open the fridge? Fans are relatively low power, the only issue is that we'd have to detect someone opening a door.
We could have a automatic sliding door that is button operated, then we can have the fridge open when the cold air has been sucked into the bag.
When the door closes, we exhale the cold air from the top of fridge, pushing the normal air out the bottom.
The fridge would operate similar to an airlock would, only using cheaper fans since we don't need to change air pressure.
You just offered a solution for the problem you outlined:
"This fridge would need all kinds of little compartments and shelves to keep things like produce from going to the bottom and getting squashed."
So the problem is solved :-)
some users would be happy with this. but you bring the gravity back into the equation. this time putting it on the user to lift things up and down. in the vertical frig, the drawers slide out more effortlessly.
I love this horizontal fridge idea. Its good to see people thinking outside the box ;). But it only works for the early adopters with strong backs.
what if you avoid having the door open all together and take the concepts of warehouse robots and integrate them into your fridge, i'm sure the robot could maximize the space a lot better too. An added bonus you would also have a full list of your fridges contents.
the way i see it working is you have a fridge then some smaller box where you insert the item which passes through an airlock type thing where mr robot places your things away.
It's a converted chest type freezer. Freezers also have a lot thicker insulation on the walls that also helps improve the efficiency a lot.
It also takes a lot of floor space. On the other hand it could be usable as a secondary refridgerator to hold cold drinks, vegetables etc. that you don't want taking space in your main fridge.
And btw where is my aerogel-insulated fridge? I want one for my flying car!
Am I the only one who sees a usability problem with this? With freezers this layout is acceptable, as you don't browse around for stuff many times a day, just dump them in the box and forget about it till next spring.
Even if it has shelves, just by thinking about how one gets the jar of jelly out from the back of lowest shelf makes my back hurt.
What it needs is a rotating shelf, it would be less space efficient, but then you could just spin the wheel to get something at the bottom.
Also, it doesn't have to be a wheel, maybe just a bunch of hanging shelves on a movable track. If it were a track, you also wouldn't need such a large cover, you could get by with a cover just large enough to access 1 compartment on the movable shelf. Advanced fridge shelves could operate like tape backup systems -- type in "milk" and it rotates the milk compartment to the access cover.
With the microcomputer, it could also keep track of access times of each compartment and ping you when it thinks a compartment has food past the expiration date. With the rotating fridge compartments, you could also have weird fridge layouts that still maintain energy efficiency -- maybe a tall and skinny one, but there is a loading bay at the user's height level.
Why not just add those plastic strip drapes they use in super markets to your existing fridge? That would do a lot to minimize the cold air dumping out when you opened the door wouldn't it?
The link is in Swedish, but it's a list of freezers just like his readily available for purchase. Mouse-over an item in the list to see an image. The columns: divide the price by ten to get an approximate USD price; energy use per year; freezing capacity per 24h; volume.
[edit] My in-laws have a freezer like this and use it for long term storage. And yes, there are usability problems.
[edit2] Freezer != fride, of course. I shouldn't comment with a baby on my lap, and I also blame it on language barriers! :)
Usability and shape is the biggest problem with this idea. However, if you had something in the fridge that would minimize the amount of air in the fridge that could work i.e a spring loaded mechanism of some sort that pushes back to allow for goods to be inserted in the fridge. If no goods are on the shelf then the spring pushes to the front thus allowing less air to be in the fridge. Hey? Can I get VC funding for this?
A little confusion in the units there...
It would appear the author means 100 watts for one hour, so 0.1 kWh per day or 3 kWh per month. Compared to the regular's fridge 30 kWh/month.
I suspect they probably have thought of this. But to me, this is one of those ideas that looks good on paper. The obvious main problem here is usability. Freezers work in this configuration because everything you put in them roughly turns into bricks that stack on each other without damage. This fridge would need all kinds of little compartments and shelves to keep things like produce from going to the bottom and getting squashed.
In order to have a fridge with the same capacity as an upright fridge, I suspect you would need quite a bit of floor space. There are practical limits on how deep you can make a fridge without it being difficult to use. It's probably fine if you're a single person and don't have a lot of stuff. But what about for a family? Finally, many kitchens have a "spot" for a fridge, and anything that doesn't fit there, needs to go somewhere else. It's likely there likely isn't going to be enough floor space.