Exploitable results
Household appliances usually consume significant quantities of energy, far above that which can be supplied by an affordable sized household photo-voltaic system. The highly efficient household appliances developed during this project represent a significant market boost for solar technology by reducing the size of the generator required to provide the same energy service.
The development of the stand-alone solar house market is currently limited by the high price of solar energy generators. The purpose of this project was to bring down the price, and thus boost the solar market, by reducing the size of the generator required to provide the same service. It was intended that this should be achieved through making significant progress with respect to the energy consumption of some household appliances, such as refrigerators, freezers and television sets. The work carried out concerned the development of devices which can be directly powered by a typical battery-based stand-alone PV system (12 or 24 VDC).