What makes a fridge energy-efficient? Here's what to look for
You'll lower energy usage and costs
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Reviewed / Timothy Renzi
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One of the best parts about buying a new fridge is saving money on your utility bill. Whether it's a side-by-side, French-door, top-freezer or bottom-freezer, any new fridge will have an advantage over an older one—which can save you a lot of money.
As refrigerator technology has improved, the energy they require (and therefore the cost to run) has gone way down. If you've had your current model for 10 years or longer, you'll likely save money with a new fridge.
Some of these advancements are born from existing technologies improving over time, but in certain cases, new technologies (or new ways of leveraging old technologies) have created innovative improvements in energy efficiency.
Here, we'll go over some of the features you should look for if you're in the market for an energy-efficient refrigerator.
Make sure it has an Energy Star rating
If you're looking for a fridge with low energy requirements, the best place to start is to check if it is Energy Star certified. Bosch was the winner of Energy Star’s 2023 partner of the year award.
Energy Star is a government-backed program administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It rates products based on how well they meet energy standards.
If you're shopping for a new fridge and want to make sure the energy it requires won't cost you an arm and a leg, look for the Energy Star symbol somewhere on its packaging or marketing. An Energy Star badge is the easiest way to find energy-efficient models.
Energy Star-certified products aren't always the most efficient of the bunch, but receiving a badge does mean it's at least met the government's standards for acceptable energy expenditure. An Energy Star-certified refrigerator is likely to be significantly cheaper to operate compared to one without the badge.
If you want to make sure a product has been certified, the Energy Star website provides a search engine where you can look up a product's model number.
A compressor upgrade (or a second one) can keep costs low
Some refrigerators, like this Bosch, have two compressors, one to handle the fridge (and flex drawer) and one to handle the freezer.
The compressor is essentially the heart of your fridge. It circulates the refrigerant, which, through a combination of heat and pressure, draws heat out of the fridge and radiates it out the coils on its back.
Modern compressors are significantly more energy efficient than older models, and typically generate less heat, less noise, and use less energy.
While it may not be immediately intuitive, splitting the work between two compressors, as seen in the Bosch 800 Series B36CL80SNS pictured, is significantly more energy efficient than just having one. There are a few reasons for this.
By dividing the work, it means you can have two lower-power compressors instead of one giant one. This makes a difference every time you open one of the doors because it means the cold air in that compartment can be replenished by using a smaller, more energy-efficient compressor where a single, powerful compressor would be overkill and a waste of energy.
Also, because the fridge and freezer are kept at different temperatures, a single-compressor fridge needs to work hard to make sure each compartment is getting the right amount of cold air. With two compressors, none of that extra work is needed.
Advanced adaptive compressors are cruise control for cooling
Advanced adaptive compressors have variable speed, not just on and off, so they can more closely hover around exactly where the temperature needs to be.
Like a car engine, a compressor uses more energy starting up than it does idling—or in this case, maintaining a temperature. Most typical single-compressor models don't have variable speeds, so they need to start their engines, run for a while, then turn off.
In a fridge, this means alternating between too warm and too cold, with the hope that it all averages out to be more or less the correct temperature.
An advanced adaptive compressor is capable of variable speeds, so it isn't just stuck with on and off.
These additional settings allow an advanced adaptive compressor to maintain the ideal temperature, rather than overshooting and undershooting it. Fewer temperature fluctuations mean your food is kept at the ideal temperature for longer, maximizing your food's shelf life. It also means energy savings and cost savings from not having to work as hard.
LEDs provide better lighting and are better for the environment
Fridges lit by LED arrays not only improve visibility, but they also use much less electricity than a traditional 40-watt incandescent bulb.
If your old fridge is lit by a single 40-watt bulb, this is one fridge upgrade you'll love: LED arrays.
If you've never used a fridge lit by an LED array before, simply open your current fridge and imagine what it would be like if you could actually see everything. LED arrays typically employ several strips of lights that illuminate both the top and sides of objects in your fridge, dramatically improving visibility.
While LED arrays, like that in the Midea MRQ22D7AST French-door fridge pictured above, are great for helping you spot those leftovers before they go bad, they're also excellent for reducing the energy consumption of your fridge. A 40-watt incandescent light bulb uses about as much energy as an 11-watt LED bulb.
With LEDs, you have more, brighter lights throughout your fridge, while using less electricity in the process. It's really a win-win situation.
Vacation mode helps save energy while you're away
You can put the Bosch B36CT80SNS in Vacation mode from the Home Connect app or on the control panel at the top of the fridge.
If you travel a lot for work, or plan to take an extended vacation, companies like Bosch have a great energy solution for you. Vacation mode, called Holiday mode overseas, lets you reduce the overall energy consumption of your fridge by allowing the temperature in your fridge to rise a bit—up to 46°F—and it lets the compressor know you won't be opening the door, so it doesn't need to work as hard to maintain the temperature.
While these temperatures are too warm for keeping particularly perishable goods from spoiling, if you're away from home for a week or more, chances are those items wouldn't have lasted anyway. Just make sure you've emptied out your fridge of anything that can't take the increase in temperature, and enjoy the slightly lower energy bill when you return from your trip.
Different door designs can keep cold air from escaping
Fridges lit by LED arrays not only improve visibility, but they also use much less electricity than a traditional 40-watt incandescent bulb.
Cold air escapes your fridge when you open the door. Fortunately, some doors are more committed to keeping the cold air inside the fridge, where it belongs, which can result in lower energy costs over time.
One feature that does this is the door-in-door design. Door-in-door essentially separates one of the fridge doors into two parts, the interior and the exterior, and lets you open both independently.
The idea is that you can easily access items stored on the door bins without fully opening the door, letting you quickly grab a jug of milk while letting minimal cold air escape.
An upgraded version of this door-in-door design is LG's InstaView door. Fridges with this feature have the regular door-in-door setup, but the exterior of the door is a mirrored piece of glass. Normally the glass is dark and opaque, but if you knock on it the interior lights will switch on, letting you see the fridge's interior.
With this design, you can quickly browse what's on the door and even see better into what's stored on the shelves—without opening the door at all. This lets you minimize the time the door is actually open.
The Frigidaire Pro PRMC2285AF French-door features an OpenAccess door. Typically, a French-door refrigerators' namesake doors are of equal size, but with the OpenAccess door design the right door is significantly larger than the left. This lets you access more items from the interior of the fridge without needing to open both doors, allowing the closed door to help keep cold air contained.
Regular maintenance will help keep your fridge energy efficient
New features can be great for reducing the energy cost of your refrigerator, but there's also a few things you can do—for free!—to keep your fridge running efficiently.
For starters, your fridge needs adequate air flow to ensure it's dispersing heat properly. That means making sure there's about six inches of space between its back and the wall. It's also a good idea to keep that gap around the sides and top as well, but that may not be an option if you need it to slot into a space in your cabinetry.
In a similar vein, it's a good idea to keep external sources of heat away from your refrigerator. That means keeping it out of direct sunlight and not placing it directly next to your stove. Any additional heat will cause your fridge to have to work harder.
You can also help your fridge disperse heat efficiently by making sure you clean the coils on its back every so often. These coils need to radiate heat, so any dusty build-up is going to act like insulation and prevent that heat from escaping.
As long as you keep these tips in mind, you'll keep your fridge's energy cost low by helping it work less. Not only will that help you save on utility bills, but it will make your refrigerator last longer before something breaks.
Finally, if you're conscious about keeping your energy costs low for environmental reasons, make sure to recycle your fridge when you buy a new one. Some retailers will offer to pick up your old fridge when they deliver the new one, but even if they don't, your municipality will have a fridge recycling program to ensure its disposed of properly—sometimes you can even get a rebate towards a newer fridge.
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