How Many Watts Does a Refrigerator Use Per Day? (Explained!)

by franzink

Refrigerators are among the heaviest power consumers at home; there’s no doubt about that. And given that they run almost 24 hours, you’ve to ask, how many watts does a refrigerator use per day?

While conventional refrigerators have a starting wattage rating of about 200-800 watts, they only require a running wattage of 70-280 watts per day. Large-capacity refrigerators, however, need more wattage to start and run.

Note that while the primary factor is whether the fridge is starting or running, there are other factors that determine a refrigerator’s power usage. That includes the fridge size, type, energy-star rating season, use, location, fridge age, working condition, and set temperature.

But before discussing all these factors, let’s look at how you can calculate your own fridge’s power usage. That’s key if you want to know if the appliance is shooting your electricity bill to the sky.

how many watts does a refrigerator use per day

How to Calculate Fridge Power Consumption?

Did you know that you can calculate the amount of electricity your refrigerator uses daily? That’s right! You can do it using any of these methods:

1. Energy-Star Rating

By using the Energy-Star label, you can determine your refrigerator’s power consumption by following these steps:

Identify the estimated yearly electricity consumption on the Energy Star label in KWh
Divide by 1000 to get the watt-hours/year
Then divide the value by 365 to get the watt-hours/day
That gives you the energy consumption per day

For example;

If the energy star’s yearly electricity consumption was 227 KWh, the watts-hour per year would be 227,000wh while the watts-hours per day would be 621.91 wh.

And if you want to get the average daily consumption, divide the watt-hours per day (621.91 wh) by 24. That gives you 25.91 watts.

2. Fridge Wattage Formula

Even if your refrigerator is not energy-star-rated, you can still calculate its power consumption from its wattage rating.

Overall, there are three ways to do it:

Option 1 – Duty Cycle Formula

The Duty cycle refers to the time percentage the compressor runs, and it’s usually 35% for fridges and 65% for freezers. This formula requires you to multiply your fridge wattage (on the label) with the duty cycle.

That means if the fridge wattage is 500 watts, the consumption will be 500 x 35% which equals 175 watts.

Assuming the fridge runs for 8 hours a day, here’s what to expect in terms of fridge wattage if you use the Duty Cycle formula:

Fridge Wattage Rating (on the Sticker)	Actual Consumption (after factoring in the 35% Duty Cycle)
200 watts	70 watts
300 watts	105 watts
400 watts	140 watts
500 watts	175 watts
600 watts	210 watts
700 watts	245 watts
800 watts	280 watts

Option 2 – Energy Consumption in kWh

You only need to follow these steps:

Identify the wattage rating on your fridge (typically 300 – 800 watts)
Divide the wattage by 3 to get the refrigerator’s actual energy consumption
Divide by 1000 to get the electricity usage per hour (KWh), and multiply the KWh value by 24 hours to get the daily consumption.

Here’s an example:

Suppose your fridge’s wattage rating is 500W. Dividing 500W by 3 gives you 167W, the actual energy consumption.

Now, if you divide 167W by 1000, you’ll get 0.167KWh, the power consumption per hour.

Multiply that by 24 to get the daily power consumption (approximately 4 KWh).

Option 3 – Multiplying by the Number of Running Hours

Note that you can also use the fridge wattage formula as follows:

Assuming that the fridge runs for 8 hours a day, multiply the fridge wattage (which in the above case was 500 watts) by 8, and you’ll get 4,000 watts.

Divide the watts by 1,000 to get kilowatts, and the value will be 4 kWh. That’s what we got in the first scenario: your power consumption per hour.

3. Using The Power Meter

Thanks to technology, there are now power meters (View on Amazon) that you can use to determine your power usage. So, you don’t do any calculations, as all you’ve to do is plug in the power meter and wait to monitor the power usage throughout the day.

Moreover, you can use them to measure variables like continuity, voltage, and ampere, among others.

4. Amperage Formula

If you know your refrigerator’s amperage and the power supply’s voltage, you can get the fridge’s wattage by multiplying the two. So, the fridge wattage equals the fridge amperage multiplied by the socket voltage.

5. Using an Energy Calculator

A site like Energyusecalculator.com lets you quickly calculate your electricity usage and estimate how much it’ll cost. But again, you must know your fridge’s wattage and use the value to determine your electric consumption.

Depending on the fridge’s wattage, here’s what to expect in terms of electricity consumption when using Energyusecalculator.com

Fridge Wattage Rating	Daily Consumption kWh/day	Cost Per day	Cost Per Month
200 watts	1.60	$0.16	$4.87
300 watts	2.40	$0.24	$7.30
400 watts	3.20	$0.32	$9.73
500 watts	4.00	$0.40	$12.17
600 watts	4.80	$0.48	$14.60
700 watts	5.60	$0.56	$17.04
800 watts	6.40	$0.64	$19.47

Note that the above values are for a refrigerator running an average of 8 hours per day, and the cost/price is 0.10 per kWh.