Improving the performance of household refrigerating appliances through the integration of phase change materials in the context of the new global refrigerator standard IEC 62552:2015

Abstract The influence of latent heat storage elements on the cooling performance and the temperature rise time of household refrigerating appliances is studied experimentally in the context of the “new global refrigerator standard” IEC 62552:2015 (IEC 62552:2015, 2015). In addition to the daily energy consumption, this international standardization introduced performance tests for cooling capacity and temperature rise time. While the cooling capacity has long been anchored in various test procedures of consumer organizations, the temperature rise time, which has only been tested on freezers so far, will be a decisive factor in the future. Moreover, the need for so-called "smart appliances" that may balance power consumption compensate the volatility of renewable energies and thus stabilize the power grid is increasing. Against this background, eight commercial household refrigerators and refrigerator-freezers are equipped with polymer-bound phase change materials (PCM) and their performance is determined under the new standard test conditions. The results show that the introduction of PCM increases the cooling capacity by up to 33 % and also increases the temperature rise time by up to 145 %, without affecting power consumption, as compared to the unmodified refrigeration appliances.