What do you do in the middle of summer when you come out to your off-grid cabin in remote Alaska for a month, and have to rely on a cold-hole below the cabin floor for food storage, but it’s too warm, and the cold hold just doesn’t stay cold enough? Some backwoods sourdoughs may say to buy more cans of spam, chicken, and use powdered milk and other shelf stable items. Or you can use contemporary technology to hook up a solar-powered refrigerator. I put a dorm fridge in the cabin about 3 years ago, but my 400w of solar power couldn’t power it during cloudy days, or later in the summer when there is less hours of daylight per day. The green blinky light on my charge controller turned orange, meaning that the batteries were being overused, and I ended up running the generator all day long. Yesterday, we leveled up our cabin game by installing a Unique 6.1cu ft. DC solar fridge that we ordered from Home Depot.
This fridge is not only bigger than the old dorm fridge, but it also takes less power to run. The dorm fridge used 240w when the compressor was running, this solar fridge uses only 160w. The really important thing is that it runs on DC 12v not AC 110v. This means that it is directly plugged into my solar batteries without using a power inverter. I have a 1000w inverter that we turn on when we need AC power, however, when the inverter is on it wastes 10% power, so that is 100w just going to using the inverter. If you add 240w and 100w, you are using 340w. I only had 400w of power and that is when the sun is shining bright. Which it never does all the time, especially at night. I was worried that the new fridge would need a bit of a boost and I felt that 400w of power wasn’t matched to my large batteries so I added two more 100w panels. I now have 600w of panels on my cabin. My charge controller is only rated for 400w so I had to upgrade that as well. I have been using Renogy solar stuff since 2016, so I bought the size up from the 30amp unit, and now I have a 40amp unit, rated for 600w of panels. It is a lot better, because it also tells me data about battery voltage, how many amps the panels are producing, and a lot of other details. The old one had three blinking lights, and I had to refer to a sheet of paper to explain what the blinking meant.
A solar fridge is not plug and play, in fact there was no plug. I had to wire it directly into the solar system. We had a few hiccups and when I tried to power it up, it was dead. I found a loose connection and got it running after some trouble shooting. Maria and I are so happy that we don’t have to climb down on our knees to get food from the hole in the floor for every meal. The trapdoor is still a great option if something goes wrong with the fridge, and now I keep beer in there. The temp in the fridge today was 38F degrees, under the trap door it was 51F degrees, so that is an improvement. The Unique fridge also has a freezer! So we made some ice cubes. Now we will have ice to get our food back to Anchorage without the possibility of spoilage. Maria said this is a major upgrade, and I have to agree!
Real Art Is Better! 