A mini-fridge is a really cool (pun intended) appliance to have. Imagine having a cookout at your house and you don’t have to get into the house to keep the drinks coming.
All you have to do is reach into the mini-fridge and pull out an ice-cold drink. Best of all it’s only a step away from the barbeque where you are carefully watching over the steak to make sure you get it just right.
As the day progresses, one of your friends who is impressed by your mini-fridge and how convenient it asks you how many watts it uses. Well, you’ve never really thought about it and don’t really know.
You pull out your phone and do a quick Google search and discover that the average wattage for a mini-fridge ranges between 50 to 100 watts.
You discover that the watts used really vary depending on the manufacturer of the compact fridge, which is the other name for the mini-fridge, and the size o the mini-fridge.
The Number of Watts a Mini Fridge Uses
So how many Watts exactly does the mini or compact fridge use? The average range has been shared already but there are other factors which must also be considered to establish just how much energy it really uses in the long run.
Factors like the insulation on the fridge, the temperature of the immediate surroundings as well as how often the fridge is opened all play a part.
If the fridge is not properly insulated, the internal temperature can more easily be affected by the immediate surroundings.
This is one of the major reasons why you don’t want your fridge to be next to your stove for example. You need to make sure that there is sufficient distance between the two.
You will both preserve your fridge as well as save on power consumption because it takes less time and power to bring the fridge up to the optimum temperature.
When the insulation is good, there is very little leakage of cold air hence the fridge has to work less to maintain that internal temperature.
In fact, a lot o modern mini-fridges only work 30% – 50% of the time. Another factor to consider as well as how many times a fridge is opened during the course of a day.
Every time that a fridge is opened, a lot of cold air escapes meaning that it has to run more frequently to maintain the optimum temperature. The temperature setting also plays a part in how much power you use in the end.
How Energy Efficient is a Mini Fridge
The next question you can ask is, just how energy efficient is a mini-fridge? Well let’s look at that, shall we? Without a doubt, a mini-fridge uses a lot less power than a standard size refrigerator. We know that the wattage for a mini-fridge ranges between 50watts to 100 watts.
A standard refrigerator, on the other hand, uses 100 w to 400w which translates to around 1575kWh per year. A mini-fridge, depending on the size, will consume around 292kWh per year.
These are ballpark figures because, as already mentioned, factors like make, external conditions and how often it is opened all play a part in energy consumption.
A comparison of the Mini Fridge and Full-Size Fridge
Is it safe then to say that a mini-fridge uses less energy based on those numbers? It would seem to be the case but looks can be deceiving.
Studies have shown that when you look at the figures we have just shared and calculate them using energy consumption per cubic foot, the larger fridges are actually more energy efficient when stacked up against their smaller counterparts.
Conclusion
The wattage rating of a mini-fridge is pretty easy to find out from by reading the product manual or back panel or through a quick Google search.
I’ll assume though, that the main reason you are reading this article is to establish the impact that a particular rating will have on your overall energy consumption.
I’ve shared that the number of watts that a mini-fridge uses depends on a number of factors which include the make, the layers of insulation, surrounding environment temperature as well as how often the fridge is opened.
When you factor these in with your calculations, you will get a ballpark estimation of how much energy your mini-fridge consumes on a year on year basis.