Fermentation fridge energy consumption

[LukeDennys]

This is probably a "how long is a piece of string" question, but has anyone here with a fermentation fridge monitored how much energy it consumes? I live off grid and only run a genny for things like the washing machine, and i charge my battery bank for lights at the same time. So having a fermentation fridge permanently connected to 230v isn't really an option. However, I was thinking that if my fridge was in a very well insulated cabinet in my shed then it might work like a thermos flask and remain at a constant temperature for a long time with the genny only run once or twice a day for a short time. Or, I could get a dedicated solar panel, battery and inverter to keep ithe temperature stable. But for this I'd ideally need an idea of the energy consumption required. Any ideas? I'll be using a 60w heater.

[Pinto]

Energy use flips - in the summer, it's biased towards the cooling rating of the Fridge, winter it's toward the 60W of the tube heater - chilling will definitely be the larger of the two draws, so check the rating plate to see what it's going to draw.

If you are limited by your supply, you could always consider using the fridge as an insulated box only and run the cooling side on peltier arrays - these are rated mostly in the 70-150W range @ 12v and will maintain around 10-12 degrees on the cooling side at 20-22 degrees ambent - unless you're planning a lager, that should be fine

[Fil]

I recall reading a US brewers build of a cellotex box for fermenting he was in one of the silly hot states, and would keep it cool with a controller run battery pc fan, blowing over 4 and 6 pint milk bottles frozen in rotation in the house freezer. his results were good as long as he kept rotating the frozen bottles, and using a lift off lid kept the cold air in when changing.. come a uk winter hot water bottles could be substituted..

But imho a brewfridge should be cheaper than a domestic fridge to run, its not opened x times a day and its target temp is closer to ambient in most cases ( regular crash chilling would upset this theory)

and you can google for an estimate of a domestic fridges running cost..
http://www.which.co.uk/home-and-garden/ ... rgy-costs/

[LukeDennys]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm thinking that I might need to build myself the equivalent of an old style larder than houses had in the past. If I can keep the temperature in there fairly constant but below 18 degrees then I would only ever need to apply heat which would use less power than the cooling side of things. Or I could just find a mate with a shed and electricity....