Performance studies on a domestic refrigerators retrofitted with building-integrated water-cooled condenser

Residential buildings contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions through the use of energy-intensive products. Household energy consumption and associated emissions can be reduced partly if energy-saving methods are adopted by the occupants. This paper studies the performance of domestic refrigeration system with water-cooled condenser in which the water used for general purposes in a residential building has been considered as the cooling water for the condenser. The circulation quantity of water per day has been varied, and the variation of COP has been studied and presented. The results obtained from the theoretical and experimental studies show that the COP of the system with brazed plate heat exchanger (BPHE) as water-cooled condenser is 57% to 75% higher than that of air-cooled condenser. Moreover, the system with water-cooled BPHE reduces the per day energy consumption of the system from 21% to 27%. The TEWI of the system with water-cooled BPHE is also 5% to 43% lower than that of the system with air-cooled condenser, and thus the building energy-efficiency could be improved by integrating the refrigerator with the general water supply of a residential building.