Press Room

As a result of recent improvements in insulation and compressors, today's refrigerators use far less energy than older models. However, too many households don’t reap the energy saving benefits that come with a new refrigerator because they move their old model into the garage or basement. That second fridge, which often serves solely as a beverage cooler, can add up to $150 to a home’s annual energy costs.

Great River Energy and its member cooperatives have spent the summer trying to get those old, inefficient appliances off the grid to help cooperative members use electricity more wisely. Known as the “Fridge Farewell” program, cooperatives across the state offered a bounty for homeowners to give up their secondary refrigerator or freezer.

Those who participated were given $35 after a professional contractor hauled away and properly recycled their old refrigerator or freezer.

The Fridge Farewell program resulted in the removal of more than 3,000 refrigerators and 1,000 freezers.

The program, which ended on Aug. 31, resulted in the removal of more than 3,000 refrigerators and 1,000 freezers, which will add up to an annual energy savings of more than 3 million kilowatt-hours (kWh).

That energy savings will help Great River Energy’s member cooperatives make progress toward a statute that dates back to Minnesota’s 2007 Next Generation Energy Act. Included in the statute is a conservation improvement program, which sets an energy conservation goal for every electric and gas utility in the state equivalent to 1.5 percent of their annual retail energy sales.

Great River Energy’s 1.5 percent goal is 167 million kWh – that’s as much energy savings as the annual electricity needs of nearly 16,000 households. Up to one third of the goal can come from energy efficiency improvements to a utility’s system such as generation, transmission and distribution improvements, but the bulk of the energy savings must come from encouraging changes among consumers through programs like Fridge Farewell.

Great River Energy and its member cooperatives offer a wide assortment of rebate programs and incentives to help members save energy and to make progress toward the state conservation goal.

Find more news by reading the September edition of Great River News.