50Hz refrigerator running on 60Hz

[Hugh Conway]

European spec fridges are very much more energy efficient than those available to us in North America.
Example, an American made Sunfrost is rated at 150KWH annually, by far the most efficient unit commercially  available, and costs about $3000.
The most efficient brand names available here in N.A. use upwards of 300KWH annually.
A Bosch fridge of comparable size is rated at 130KWH annually and is available for about 650 Euros (about $900) in Germany.

Difference in power consumption makes a big diff for those of us who are off-grid.

Don't get me started on why we are stuck with such power hogs when much more efficient units are available elsewhere.

Does anyone have an educated opinion re running a European spec fridge 220V 50Hz on 240V 60Hz.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers,
Huhg

[fabricator]

Not an expert but I believe it will run but the motor will run hot and eventually the smoke will get out of it.

[scrapman]

Just run it on 50hz inverter.
peter

[mike90045]

The motor will try to spin faster, and may stall, slip or overheat because of the excess drag.

 Is 10Hz going to cause a problem?

 If you have a way to fire it up with a pure sine 50 Hz, and measure power, and compare to 60Hz, if less then 10% power difference, I'd say ignore it.  More than 10% difference, and you can expect trouble.  But this is pure gut feeling, never done it before.  Your mileage may vary.  Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.  Batteries not included.

[Oiler]

I have asked a compressor expert here. He said that running a 60hz unit on 50 hz is no problem, but he did not know how it works the other way round. He will find out and let me know 

[Oiler]

Well I got an answer at last.
I have asked both my freind who is a refrigderation engineer, and a collegue of his who is enginner in our drives division.
They agree that if your voltage is correct, 230 or 240 volts there are no problems running a 50 hz fridge on 60 hz power.

[LowGear]

I hope you're going to keep us posted?  Like when you plug it in and throw the breaker?  Are you're going to use a North American 240 volt plug - receptacle?

I like theory as much as anyone but the kick in the seat that applied technology delivers is pretty interesting too.

Casey

[Hugh Conway]

Gentlemen,

Thanks for all of your feedback.

First, a huge amount of very frustrating research and inquiry to find an energy efficient fridge. Seems the manufacturers in North America would rarely even bother to answer inquiries, Large appliance dealers have sales people that have no knowledge of the products they are selling, and generally have no interest in learning. After listening to several salesmen dispense a lot of nonsensical BS, my intelligent wife realized that she knew much more about fridges than any of the sellers. At one point she was told "you don't need to know any of that, my dear, we have just the fridge that would look great in your kitchen."  To that salesman, she replied, "I believe sir, it would look better still, up your ass!" That's where the European search began in earnest.

In the end we did buy a Bosch fridge from Germany. Shipping was problematical, but my ever-resourceful wife got that sorted out, and for very little $. We ended up with a very nice Bosch machine with an EU efficiency rating of A+++, the best available at the time, though I think they are about to be producing even more efficient models. This one has dual compressors (freezer or fridge can  run independently)  Rated at 132KWH annually, I encourage you to compare with the best EnergyStar rated fridge/freezer units. Shipped by sea to Montreal, then trucked, took 2 1/2 weeks from purchase in Hamburg to delivery in Vancouver. Total cost, not much more than a normal NA fridge that consumes at least 3X the power.
After uncrating and reading the users manual, I replaced the European spec plug with a 240V NA spec, same for wall receptacle. Fridge is on a dedicated circuit, so replaced single pole CB with double pole. plugged in, energized the circuit. No smoke, fridge works. Been working normally for a month. When first plugged in, we were using grid power. Now off-grid, no discernible difference in operation.  Money well spent.
Happy wife! And as she never tires of relating, "Happy wife = Happy life!"

Regards,
Hugh

[dieselgman]

Congrats Hugh! We could all use a wife like yours! 

dieselgman

[mike90045]

Gentlemen,

Thanks for all of your feedback.

.....
we did buy a Bosch fridge from Germany. 

Is the the 50 hz fridge, now running on 60 hz ?

[Hugh Conway]

Gentlemen,

Thanks for all of your feedback.

.....
we did buy a Bosch fridge from Germany. 

Is the the 50 hz fridge, now running on 60 hz ?

Hi Mike: Yes indeed, 50Hz 230V rated fridge running on 60Hz 240V,  about 6 weeks, no problems..........well, it beeps if you leave the door open too long, so no midnight munchie searches.
Cheers,
Hugh

[BruceM]

Bravo, Hugh. And bravo to your awesome wife.

It makes you wonder when we in NA are hell bent on eliminating incandescent lighting, but are perfectly content to have power hog refrigerators and other appliances.

A big hoot for me a year ago was when someone on the microcogen forum posted his parasite loads for inverter, GFI outlets, arc detection breakers, etc.  His parasite loads were more than my total daily off grid power usage; incandescent lighting and computer-projector. (My refrigerator is propane- blissful in it's utter silence, if not it's energy use.)

So while we are banishing the incandescent, we are adding safety equipment and smart meters which will consume more power than the bulbs we eliminated.  They forgot to put power consumption limits on these mandated power equipment. Sorta like the city that repaves, then digs up the street for scheduled water main replacement.

[Tom]

Yes that is awesome. We just got a new fridge and it's rated for 420 kw per year. It was better than our old one which was the best that could be found at the time at 525 kw per year. What size is this new fridge?

[xyzer]

Yes that is awesome. We just got a new fridge and it's rated for 420 kw per year. It was better than our old one which was the best that could be found at the time at 525 kw per year. What size is this new fridge?

Most European appliances are smaller than the stuff we have. But I'm sure they make them big. I am also curious about the size in CF.   

[Hugh Conway]

Re Fridge size:

Yes it is smaller than the usual NA fridges, though we find the refrigerator part to be more than adequate. Lots of items that we formerly kept in the old fridge are now in the pantry....not really necessary to refrigerate all that stuff we usually keep there. The freezer is a bit smaller than we would like, though we have a couple of chest freezers out in the pump-house.

This particular fridge is a Bosch KDE29AL40 Total capacity is about 9 cu. ft. Freezer is about 2.3 cu. ft. with the remaining 6.7in the fridge.
If you needed a lot more capacity, two of these would give 18 cu. ft. and still use only 264KWH per year. We had a wide choice of brands and models, this one suited us best.
BTW it is QUIET!

As an additional comment on energy use, and why we don't have more efficient appliances widely available:I remember many years ago, there was a call for additional power generation in New York state. A proposal was made for an additional nuclear power station. Someone did the math, discovered that if each household was given (FREE) a new replacement energy efficient fridge, it would more than eliminate the need tor the nuke plant and at a very small fraction of the cost. Guess what happened..............
Cheers,
Hugh