Which fridge/freezer would be more energy efficient?

Crafty424

I’ve decided to get a new fridge/freezer and after having had a look at them on the shop floor decided to go for this Kenwood one. However, the confusing thing is this fridge/freezer comes in three different energy ratings, all exactly the same design and capacity and so forth. They do an E rated version for £599 which I’ve ruled out due to high energy usage. I’m trying to decide between the C rated one for £719 here:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/kenwood-ksbsxc23-americanstyle-fridge-freezer-inox-10249128.html

Or the more expensive A rated one here:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/kenwood-ksbsxa23-americanstyle-fridge-freezer-inox-10249127.html

I’m trying to work out if it would save me money going for the A rated one. Any thoughts would be really helpful. Thank you.

Slinky

There's a Which report behind a paywall on the top rated one. Might be worth a trip to your local library to read it. Most libraries seem to have a subscription to Which I think.

Gerry1

The A rated one uses 139kWh per year and costs £1,049

The C rated one uses 212kWh per year and costs £719

So the A model costs £330 more but saves 73kWh per year.  At 25p/kWh that's a saving of £18.25 equal to a return of 5.5%.

Edited: Best not to compare chalk and cheese.  Thanks, matelodave !

matelodave

I think Gerry has used the £599 (E) v £719 (C) = £120 extra rather than £1049 for the(A)

However doing the sums
The A rated costs £1049 and uses 139kwh a year = £34.75 in electricity
The C rated costs £719 and uses 212kwh a year = £53 in electricity 
The E rated cots £599 and uses 313 kwh a year = £78.25 in electricty

so compared with the E rated the C will cost £120 more and save £25.25 and take around £4.7 years before you break even and start getting a profit whereas comparing the E with the A you'll pay £450 extra and save £43.50 a year, thus taking around 10 years to break even.

Comparing the C and the A, you'll pay £330 more and by saving £18.25 a year it will take some 18 years before you break even

So the C rated looks like the better value to me as you'll break even and be in profit after just 4.7 years

Ildhund

It also depends a bit on where the fridge/freezer is. If it's inside the house, e.g. in the kitchen, it's only wasting energy if there's no heating on. It may be wasting money if the house isn't electrically heated, because heat from electricity is usually more expensive than from other sources (the big exception to this is when there's a heat pump). And it will be wasting both energy and money during the summer. So the 'savings' others have worked out have to be modified to account for the heat generated, which will reduce the cost of heating a bit if it's controlled by a thermostat.

It will depend on the temperature in the room where the appliance is, too. It will have to work harder to stay cool in a hot room, and correspondingly less hard in a cold one (like my kitchen, where the temperature just now is only about 5° higher than inside the fridge). If you turn the heating off on 31 March and on again on 1 October, you can deduct the cost of about half of the 139 or 212 kWh from what you use for heating in a year. The cost of the other half is money out the window.

The actual saving for you will be really difficult to work out. If you know how much energy your current machine consumes, then you can compare the annual running cost of both the old and new appliances. I had absolutely no idea what the freezer in my kitchen was using until I plugged it into a smart socket. In January, it consumed 6.2 kWh - 200Wh a day. That would be a drop in the ocean of heating costs for a normal household.

HillStreetBlues

matelodave said:

I think Gerry has used the £599 (E) v £719 (C) = £120 extra rather than £1049 for the(A)

However doing the sums
The A rated costs £1049 and uses 139kwh a year = £34.75 in electricity
The C rated costs £719 and uses 212kwh a year = £53 in electricity 
The E rated cots £599 and uses 313 kwh a year = £78.25 in electricty

so compared with the E rated the C will cost £120 more and save £25.25 and take around £4.7 years before you break even and start getting a profit whereas comparing the E with the A you'll pay £450 extra and save £43.50 a year, thus taking around 10 years to break even.

Comparing the C and the A, you'll pay £330 more and by saving £18.25 a year it will take some 18 years before you break even

So the C rated looks like the better value to me as you'll break even and be in profit after just 4.7 years

How it is paid for needs to be factored in

matelodave

HillStreetBlues said:

matelodave said:

I think Gerry has used the £599 (E) v £719 (C) = £120 extra rather than £1049 for the(A)

However doing the sums
The A rated costs £1049 and uses 139kwh a year = £34.75 in electricity
The C rated costs £719 and uses 212kwh a year = £53 in electricity 
The E rated cots £599 and uses 313 kwh a year = £78.25 in electricty

so compared with the E rated the C will cost £120 more and save £25.25 and take around £4.7 years before you break even and start getting a profit whereas comparing the E with the A you'll pay £450 extra and save £43.50 a year, thus taking around 10 years to break even.

Comparing the C and the A, you'll pay £330 more and by saving £18.25 a year it will take some 18 years before you break even

So the C rated looks like the better value to me as you'll break even and be in profit after just 4.7 years

How it is paid for needs to be factored in

Also you could take into account how much interest you could get if you bought a cheaper machine and invested the difference.

Likewise who knows what leccy is going to cost - if it goes down then it will take longer to pay back, conversely if the price increase then the payback period get shorter.

Scot_39

The rating tells you what the relative running costs are in anticipated typical kWh per annum etc.

But ultimately the device forms part of a process - the device running and purchase cost - but also the cost of the food put in - and cooking it when it comes out.

Not preaching as I have a small FF myself for convenience.  As to me a convenience device - not an essential one.

Have you considered if want some convenience - perhaps a smaller model - that will cost less to buy even if possibly not much less to run than the most efficient option.

After all - everything passing through it - has to use energy to freeze the food, store it long term (transport to store etc - and freezer electricity costs there if pre-bought)  and defrost  / cook from frozen takes often much longer etc.

Gerry1

matelodave said:

I think Gerry has used the £599 (E) v £719 (C) = £120 extra rather than £1049 for the(A)

Whoops !  Thanks, now corrected.

Crafty424

matelodave said:

I think Gerry has used the £599 (E) v £719 (C) = £120 extra rather than £1049 for the(A)

However doing the sums
The A rated costs £1049 and uses 139kwh a year = £34.75 in electricity
The C rated costs £719 and uses 212kwh a year = £53 in electricity 
The E rated cots £599 and uses 313 kwh a year = £78.25 in electricty

so compared with the E rated the C will cost £120 more and save £25.25 and take around £4.7 years before you break even and start getting a profit whereas comparing the E with the A you'll pay £450 extra and save £43.50 a year, thus taking around 10 years to break even.

Comparing the C and the A, you'll pay £330 more and by saving £18.25 a year it will take some 18 years before you break even

So the C rated looks like the better value to me as you'll break even and be in profit after just 4.7 years

This is just what I was looking for, thank you. I did a few basic sums based on the information available online and came to the a similar conclusion that the C rated one would work out most cost effective. I’ve compared it to what a similar model of my current but smaller E rated fridge/freezer costs to run, and the newer larger one would be slightly cheaper to run.

In response to the some of the other comments, it will be in my kitchen which has a small radiator, but the heating isn’t on all day. 

I have looked at smaller ones, but the problem is that my current one isn’t sufficient in terms of storage for the size of my family. I only get to the supermarket once a week due to mobility issues and was looking for something bigger but not enormous that I could freeze bread in, and stock up when things are on offer. The problem I’ve found is that most fridge/freezers have very high energy ratings and the selection of C and below ones isn’t great.

Chrysalis

Some good replies in the thread, the sort of thing should be listed on the product spec page.

The obvious considerations though these are estimated savings as has been mentioned, depending on settings, where its located, part of country you in etc.  Tariff considerations also to be factored in, savings be lower on good TOU tariffs e.g.