Hi guys

The other day I bought a new fridge. This is the A+ (Slightly more expensive than normal A)

I saw it uses about 20% less power over a year.

The compressor looked smaller than what I would expect, is the saving due to smaller compressor motor or more insulation in the casing, I don’t think this one has the inverter motor? Any knowledge on this A+?

 

I did some googling. The long and the short of it is that the rating reflects the power consumption relative to some benchmark load. The benchmark is different for different classes of appliance. To get the A+ you must use no more than a certain percentage of the reference load. They don't stipulate HOW you should achieve this, just what you should achieve.

My newest fridge is A+. Two things I noticed is that the compressor is smaller, and that when it's running it doesn't run at a constant speed - you can hear the speed varying.

When I changed to a more efficient setup and measured the kwhr consumption I was gobsmacked to realise I was going to save R3000 per year on electricity. 

Defy is using R600a gas in the new fridge/freezers. The gas is more effiecient than R134a so they do more with less W's.

That is only one 1/2 of the story. I saw on the Defy chest freezer the wall thickness is clearly thicker, even the lid/door is thicker. So by improving insulation with less heat ingress the already better R600a compressor has to run less to do the same work. 

1 hour ago, pvdw22 said:

Defy is using R600a gas in the new fridge/freezers. The gas is more effiecient than R134a so they do more with less W's.

That is only one 1/2 of the story. I saw on the Defy chest freezer the wall thickness is clearly thicker, even the lid/door is thicker. So by improving insulation with less heat ingress the already better R600a compressor has to run less to do the same work. 

I have an 210 liter A+ chest freezer, and I can confirm, they really are excellent value for money. I mean in general Defy has become quite crappy in other areas, but this one is still tops in my book.

Necro post: I bought a new freezer recently. I used the Kill-A-Watt on the old one before delivery of the new one, then used it on the new one after that had settled down to it's operating temperature.

Holy moly!

Old one
Total power over 8 hours: 577 wH
Highest peak 1.3kW

The new one (70 liters bigger)
Total power over 24 hours: 681 wH (you don't need to do the arithmetic, this is way less than the old one)
Highest peak: 228 W.

And it has 70 more liters capacity.

The new one is A++ in SA now. The old one was whatever an A+ was 13 years ago.

SA used to piggy back on the EU rating system. But in 2021 the EU revised their ratings. What used to be A++, and still is in SA, is now a C. The A class will not have a lot of choices early on, but this constant tightening of the ratings will result in ever more efficient devices.