From our London Desk 
£25 Fridge gadet could slash or carbon emissions.
David Adam, environment correspondent
Saturday March 17,
2007
The
Guardian
It is made of wax, is barely
three inches across and comes in any colour you like, as long as it's black. And
it could save more greenhouse gas emissions than taxes on gas guzzling cars, low
energy light bulbs and wind turbines on houses combined. It is the e-cube, and
it is coming soon to a fridge near you.
Invented by British engineers,
the £25 gadget significantly reduces the amount of energy used by fridges and
freezers, which are estimated to consume about a fifth of all domestic
electricity in the UK. If one was fitted to each of the 87 million refrigeration
units in Britain, carbon dioxide emissions would fall by more than 2 million
tonnes a year.
The patented cube mimics food and is designed to fit
around a fridge's temperature sensor, which usually measures the temperature of
the circulating air.
Because air heats up much more quickly than yoghurt,
milk or whatever else is stored inside, this makes the fridge work harder than
necessary. With the cube fitted, the fridge responds only to the temperature of
the food, which means it clicks on and off less often as the door is open and
closed.
Trials are under way with supermarkets, breweries and hotels. One
of the largest, the Riverbank Park Plaza hotel in London, fitted the device to
each of the hotel's 140 major fridges and freezers. David Bell, chief engineer,
says energy use decreased by about 30% on average - enough to slash the hotel's
annual electricity bill by £17,000. The Park Plaza group plans to fit them
throughout its UK hotels, and to recommend them overseas.
An independent
report by Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association Group said: "The
devices do indeed save energy. The slightly increased variation in temperatures
in dummy loads would indicate that food safety would not be
compromised."
Spencer Freedman of Ecube Distribution said about 10,000 of
the devices have now been sold, and tests are under way at the Dorchester hotel
in London, as well as Asda, GreeneKing IPA, Iceland, Netto and Starbucks. Guy
Lamstaes, co-inventor of the device, said heightened concern about climate
change had made companies more interested in saving energy. "We tried to market
these for years but nobody was interested."
Mr Freedman said the devices
would have the biggest impact in the large freezers and open chill cabinets used
in the catering and supermarket industries. They do reduce the energy
consumption of domestic fridges, but the saving is not so great because the door
is not opened very often.
The company is talking to supermarket chains
about fitting them to the refrigerated lorries used to ferry chilled and frozen
foods.
The company is also about to report the results of trials at a
central London pub, which had them fitted to 34 fridges.
Ecube
Distribution claims the results will show the brewery could save around £3.5m
and 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year if it used them
nationwide.
Energy efficiency is one of the key pillars of a government
pledge to save 60% of UK carbon emissions by 2050, which will be made legally
binding by the climate change bill announced this week.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Environment/climatechange/story/0,,2036183,00.html
