[maccard]

20 years ago with fridges is a bit of a funny one because by then most had gotten rid of the nasty CFC's. But, even at that, it looks like today's fridges are _orders of magnitude_ more efficient to run than those from about 15-20 years ago.

For an oven and hob, the basics haven't changed, but my previous flat had a $600 oven that was silent, leaked practically no heat, preheated in a couple of minutes and came with nest features like an auto switch off. My new home has a range from about 15 years ago that cost 3x that, takes 20 minutes to preheat, has massive cool spots in the oven, and is noisier than my dishwasher.

For TV's, 20 years ago we were using CRT's to drive 480 vertical lines for the most part. Nowadays, you can get a 1080p HDR led TV for $200 that used 1/3 of the power of the CRT.

[dublin]

Utter Bullshit! Today's refrigerators are no more efficient than those from decades ago. In fact, the older, banned refrigerants are often more efficient, since their refrigerants were optimally designed and selected for maximum performance/efficiency in the first place! (And engineers were much better then, too. Really. Plus, I assure you that Thermodynamics has not changed in the interim!)

I'm sure my 35 y.o. Freon refrigerator is pretty much identically efficient to a modern one. The biggest difference is that mine is still running beautifully halfway through its 4th decade, while all the latest Chinese-sht-tech refrigerators will be unfixably dead in about five years at the outside. People should consider that* environmental and efficiency advantage!

[sokoloff]

> it looks like today's fridges are _orders of magnitude_ more efficient to run than those from about 15-20 years ago

15-20 year old fridges are about 35% less energy efficient than the best modern fridges, not 100x. We just haven't made that much progress in refrigerants, compressors, nor insulation.

It looks like very efficient fridges today use about 400kWh per year. Those are the best (not the average).

In the late 90s, the overall average (not best) figure was ~850 kWh/yr and from the early 2000s (20 years ago), it was ~550kWh/yr.

A 15-20 year old average fridge is about 35% less energy efficient (550/400 - 1) than the best modern fridges.

[maccard]

> 15-20 year old fridges are about 35% less energy efficient than the best modern fridges, not 100x

I apologise that you took orders of magnitude literally. I'll settle for an entire order of magnitude really. I think it's _way_ more than 35%, though.

> It looks like very efficient fridges today use about 400kWh per year. Those are the best (not the average).

Where did you get that number from? Here's [0] a $220 fridge that advertises at 90 kWh. I found another that claims 61 kWh, but it's $1800 so I left it. 20 years ago is a very specific timeframe, if you go back 25 years you're also likely talking about removing a bunch of horriffic CFC's which were widespread at the time. I'm finding it hard to find numbers for that time frame though, the only ones I can find are early 90's claims of 1700+kWh/year.

But yes, I concede, we have not had a 100x improvement in energy efficiency in 20 years. The entire rest of my post stands, and I think we've seen a 10x improvement in efficiency. At today's electricity price in the UK, the savings from a 550 kWh fridge to the one I linked above would pay for the fridge in a little over a year. Said fridge is under guarantee for 2 years in the EU/UK, so it's a _guaranteed_ cost saving over that time period.

[0] https://ao.com/product/rl170d4bwe-hisense-fridge-white-80358...

[sokoloff]

I Googled "most efficient refrigerator 2023" and landed on https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/most-energy-efficient-refrig...

I then Googled "refrigerator annual energy consumption 2000" and landed on https://blog.arcadia.com/much-electricity-refrigerator-uses/

BTW, your link [0] is to a mini-fridge (without a freezer section), not a full-size fridge. It claims 132 liter capacity, while a full-size fridge tends to be 550 to 700 liters (4 to 5 times the size). If you're going to compare a mini-fridge to a full-size fridge/freezer in order to try to win an internet argument, enjoy your trophy.

[0] - https://ao.com/product/rl170d4bwe-hisense-fridge-white-80358...

[maccard]

132L isn't a "mini" fridge, it's an under counter fridge. 700L is... utterly enormous and I don't think I've ever seen a 700L fridge in real life. Most of the fridges I'm finding on AO are in the 1-200 kWh range, honestly