Solar Fridges 10 years on

Today I met up with Professor Bob Critolph at the University of Warwick. We were discussing his research on heat pumps. Aiming to create better air conditioners for cars and more efficient boilers for heating homes.

You can read more about the general ideas behind heat pumps here.

Bob reminded me I had interviewed him before, over 10 years ago. Then he'd been working on solar powered refrigerators. Ideal for keeping vaccines cool in remote locations with no electrical supply.

This was also based on his work on heat pumps, the idea being this approach was more efficient and robust than using solar cells to directly generate electricity.

I asked him what happened to the work. For the most part he said they took it as far as they could but had run out of money. The ideas and research are out there for others who want to take things further.

But there was something left from his solar powered fridge research and it was in the car park if I fancied a look. And here is the first picture of it. A large walk in solar powered fridge. Much bigger than the prototypes I remembered.

It's a piece of work they've been asked to do by an American company working with the US Government. Taking a guess it looks like this larger prototype will be used keeping food refrigerated for troops in various desert environments.

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