Matthias Mrzyglod

Aspects of Household Cooling Technology

This article presents symptomatic aspects of cooling technology, which were not fully considered in the past or had a negligible impact on electrical energy consumption only. Actually, available household cooling appliances of the highest efficiency class may consume less than 10 W average electrical power. To achieve such low power consumption, special challenges for the cooling system need to be overcome. The related cooling system design has to deal with several effects, which arise from the corresponding low cooling capacity demand, start/stop cycles, and additional power consumption by control accessories. Specific focus is put on the evolution of key performance data during the last few years, like efficiency of compressors at specific operation points or power consumption of electrical components.