I installed a solar system for a Dentist in Dawson Texas, he is completely off grid and only uses the house on weekends. They wanted to have the refrigerator running all the time instead of having to bring ice with them. They purchased one of these (Energy Star) refrigerators. I thick it was a Whirlpool, but not sure. This part just blows my mind. After installing the batteries and SW4024 inverter and solar panels the system seemed to be working just fine. I left and drove the two hours back to north Dallas. Got a phone call the next day, the refrigerator was not working. I drove back and here's what I found. The refrigerator when it turns on to run its cooling cycle, pulls over 150 watts for a couple seconds on start up, but then drops down very quickly over the next couple minutes and ends up around 15 watts demand. What happens then is at night when the refrigerator is the only item that is turning on the inverter has to see at least 15 watts to stay turned on. When the demand for the refrigerator drops down around the 15 watts or less the invert turns off, no power for the refrigerator. This refrigerator is so effeicient it drops below the required energy demand for the inverter. I ended up installing a small under counter floresent light about 13 watts and plugged it into the same outlet as the refrigerator. This way when the refrigerator wanted to turn on for the cooling cycle it would do so, and the inverter would see the demand for current and turn on. The light would also turn on. As the current demand for the refrig dropped off to about 15 watts the floresent light also pulling about 13 watts totaling over 25 watts, this would keep the inverter turned on until the refrigerator completed its cooling cycle and shut down, then the inverter would only see the floresent lamp 13 watts and it would shut down also until the next time the refrigerator wanted to turn on. It worked great, problem solved and still saving energy. arcandspark

I would really be interested in a refrigerator that only requires 15 watts to run!! I built my current 16cf fridge from 4" foam panels and a Nova Kool unit. If and when this unit goes out, I would like to be able to replace it with something that is a little more conventional.

BTW, why didn't you change the sw4024 from search mode, to always on?

You made a good experiment in your refrigerator. That's amazing because you made it run by only 15 watts. It doesn't consume too much electricity.

GE refrigerators