Development of a Method to Measure the Energy Consumption of Automatic Icemakers in Domestic Refrigerators with Single Speed Compressors

Published

September 18, 2012

Author(s)

David A. Yashar

Abstract

This study examines the energy consumption of automatic ice makers installed in domestic refrigerators. This study builds upon the findings of a previous study and examines two refrigerator-freezers of different configurations, one French-door units with bottom freezers and one bottom mount unit that uses a twist tray mechanism to free frozen ice from the icemaker. Ice maker energy consumption is difficult to measure because they operate on a periodic cycle which is independent of the compressor cycle used to maintain the cold temperatures in the domestic refrigerator where it is installed; therefore methods proposed prior to this study have been subject to significant truncation error due to partial ice maker or compressor cycling. The purpose of this study is to define a method of measuring the energy consumption of automatic ice makers that will generate a repeatable and reproducible result. Several sets of test data from these units were analyzed and used to decipher the energy consumption of automatic ice makers. Through this effort, we developed a method of test to characterize ice maker energy consumption which circumvents the inherent problem with its measurement, truncation error due to incomplete cycling. The truncation error is avoided by measuring specific parameters with different sections of data from the same data set. This method was found to rapidly approach steady state values for the ice maker energy consumption. We then analyzed data sets from a prior study and found similar results for the stability of the ice making energy consumption; that continuous data over only 6 or 7 ice making cycles are typically sufficient to accurately characterize the energy consumption. After developing a method which eliminated the issues with truncation error, we analyzed the results of the data and found that the energy consumption due to ice production is not a very strong function of the cabinet temperatures provided that (1) the test unit oper

Citation

Technical Note (NIST TN) - 1759

Report Number

1759

NIST Pub Series

Technical Note (NIST TN)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

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DOI Link

Keywords

energy consumption, ice maker, refrigerator

Citation

Yashar, D. (2012), Development of a Method to Measure the Energy Consumption of Automatic Icemakers in Domestic Refrigerators with Single Speed Compressors, Technical Note (NIST TN), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1759 (Accessed April 20, 2024)