Smart fridges - helping to cool the planet?

Over 3,000 npower customers are to take part in a major "smart grid" trial throughout 2010 designed to assess the effectiveness of so-called smart fridge technology capable of cutting power use from fridge freezers during periods of peak demand.

Announced on the same day as the government released a major new study into the viability of smart grid technologies, the trial will see customers supplied with dynamic demand fridges and fridge freezers for free, in what will be world’s first residential test of the technology.

The fridges are designed to automatically modify their power consumption in response to second-by-second changes in the balance between supply and demand on the grid.

The trial, which will begin later this month, is being run by npower, along with white goods manufacturer Indesit and smart grid technology specialist RLtec. The firms estimate that introducing "smart fridges" could reduce the UK's CO2 emissions by 2 million tonnes and cut grid balancing costs by £220m a year.

The companies claim that the fridges' performance will not be affected by the technology as the appliances are never completely switched off. Instead, each fridge acts like a battery that stores excess power it does not need and then allows the grid to draw on it at times of peak demand.

A number of different types and models of fridge will be deployed so that the relative carbon savings can be measured. Each fridge will be monitored in real time by a data collection system, which will feed back to researchers.

Currently, energy firms must burn far more fossil fuels than necessary to ensure there is enough surplus power in the grid to deal with unexpected peaks in demand. Advocates of dynamic demand systems argue that implementing the technology across white goods and electrical appliances would slash the amount of surplus power generators have to produce, leading to deep cuts in carbon emissions.

The technology could also usher cheaper tariffs for consumers who agree to allow the grid to take electricity from their appliances at times of peak demand and charge them at times of low demand.

Climate change minister Lord Hunt said the initiative will help firms gain a better understanding of how effective dynamic demand solutions can be. "Dynamic demand is an exciting technology with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the grid's capacity to absorb wind energy – key elements of the government's energy strategy for renewables," he said.

Dynamic demand is also approved as a Demonstration Action by Ofgem under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) legislation and the initiative will contribute towards npower's carbon reduction obligations.