Samsung RS21 DGRS American Fridge Freezer Energy Power Consumption

I've recently been given a Samsung RS21 DGRS American style double fridge freezer and before switching over to it I wanted to find out what the energy/power consumption was. Having installed solar panels and made lots of energy efficiency savings at home I didn't want to suddenly undo all that work by adding an energy guzzling fridge freezer. However it was proving very difficult to find any information that gave definitive values for a energy/power use for the Samsung Fridge freezer and the Samsung website with specification details was particularly lacking information.

Samsung RS21 DGRS  American Double Fridge Freezer Energy/Power Consumption 

Thanks to this lack of energy consumption info I decided to connect my Tapo energy monitor to the plug before getting rid of our old fridge freezer so I could check exactly what electricity the Samsung RG21 was actually consuming in real use.

As you can see from the graphs below it is consistently averaging between 1.6kWh and 1.9kWh per day which actually compares quite favourably to our old fridge freezer which was between 1.2kWh and 1.6kWh per day.

The Samsung RG21 DG-RS has independent temperature controls for the fridge and freezer. For reference I've set the fridge to 4C and the freezer to -18C which seemed to be the optimum values for us.

The graph below shows the energy consumption per day for the Samsung RG21 DGRS fridge freezer - ignore the first and last days as they were only partially covered.

The graph shows the energy consumption per day for the Samsung RG21 DGRS fridge freezer

The graph below shows the Samsung RG21 power use and energy consumption over a 24 hour period. As you can see there are regular peaks and troughs with it switching between running around 140W and then dropping to zero as the compressor switches off. This gives the average for the day of around 1.6-1.8kWh of energy use.

Samsung RG21 power use and energy consumption over a 24 hour period

Samsung RG21 DGRS Temperature Controls

New Solar Feed in Tariff FIT Rates for April 2024 Onwards

UK Feed in Tariff rates (FIT) are based on the RPI inflation rate for December which is released in January. 

The RPI rate for December 2023 has just been released at 5.2% so by my calculations it gives a new FIT rate as below:

Generation rate was 68.3p so now 71.85p per kWh generated

Export rate was 4.82p so now 5.07p per kWh exported

One of the only benefits of high inflation has been the increase in FIT payments over the last few years!

New Solar Feed in Tariff FIT Rates for April 2024 Onwards

SMA Sunny Boy Inverter Dead - Replacement Needed!

 I realised this week that my Sunny Boy inverter had stopped working, rather remiss of me that it took a few days before I found out but at least I know now.

SMA Sunny Boy Inverter Dead - Replacement Needed!

I've tried a few reboots and it looks like it is something that isn't fixable so new inverter is on order. With the better weather (hopefully) coming I can't really afford to have the system off for any significant length of time as every lost kWh costs me 72p now and with 20kWh days that starts to mount up.

One benefit is the onwards move in technology in the 12 years since our system was installed so the new inverter will have much better data capability than the Sunny Boy which used quite clunky Sunny Explorer software and had to be connected via Bluetooth to access it.

New FIT Rate Feed In Tariff April 2023

 The Feed in Tariff for April 2023 onwards is based on the RPI figure for December 2022 which was announced today as 13.4%. This means that the FIT rate for early adopters pre-2012 is increasing from 60.23p per kWh generated solar power to 68.30p per kWh. This is about the only advantage of high inflation rates!

Solar Panel 10 Year Review - Green Electricity Generation

Having now had our solar panels for over 10 years it seemed an appropriate time to do a review of how they've performed in that time. We've had over 32,000 kWh of electricity generated as well as all the Feed in Tariff income.

You can see the video here

Our panels on top roof

Solar Panel 10 Year Review - Green Electricity Generation

The shading from trees in early afternoon in winter

Worst Ever December Best January!

 The worst ever December generation for Dec 2021 has been followed by our best ever January which shows how the solar electricity generated can even out over the year with very poor months compensated by much better months afterwards. 2021 was still overall our worst month for solar but not as bad as it could have been. December along was around 50% of the average we've generated over the last 10 years and that was despite no snow - or possibly because we had no snow. The month was cloudy, wet and dull for most of the days so it made a very low out output month.

The highest day of generation was just over 7kWh which was also our lowest maximum for a December day in the last 10 years.

Luckily January more than compensated with 136kWh of power generated, some 30% above the average for the month.

http://solar-panels-review.321web.co.uk/index.php/solar-power-month-by-month/12-monthly-data/14-monthly-uk-solar-panel-electricity-output-for-january

FIT Rate April 2022 Solar Feed in Tariff Payments

 The RPI rate for December 2021 has been announced today as 7.5% so this is the amount that Feed In Tariff rates will increase from April 2022.

The current generation rate for pre 2012 installations of 56.03p will increase to 60.23p and the export rate of 3.95p will increase to 4.25p.

My latest FIT payment of £227 would have increased to £244 so it's a nice increase at a time when other fuel prices are going through the roof.

FIT Rate April 2022 Solar Feed in Tariff Payments

You can see in the table above how much the rates have increased since 2012 when the generation rate was only 45.4p.