Toward Sustainable Cooling Strategy for Developing Nations: Opportunities for an Off-Grid Solar DC Refrigerator

The increasing concern of climate change promotes the need to switch to renewable resources. Refrigeration is integral in day-to-day life to store perishable goods, life-saving drugs and vaccines in hospitals and clinics. Refrigeration consumes significant amount of energy as they are required to operate throughout a day. Solar-powered refrigerators are promising alternatives to reduce carbon emissions while providing cooling. An additional benefit is its ability to use off-grid solutions, hence integral in improving the quality of life in developing nations where electricity is not readily available. Furthermore, it shall aid better quality of life for the economically backward societies by having life-saving medicines reliably available. Providing solar refrigerators in rural areas shall help people store food for longer durations, thereby elevating food wastages. The novelty of the proposed work is to convert a conventional AC refrigerator into a DC refrigerator by retrofitting AC compressor with a DC compressor. Furthermore, the Internet of thing (IoT) implementation is incorporated to enhance the user experience by remotely controlling and monitoring the performance of the refrigerator. Designed prototype is tested to determine its energy consumption. It is concluded that the fabricated prototype is found to be more energy efficient than the conventional AC refrigerator.