Freezer swap drives energy savings

Inside a farm building on the University of Delaware's campus, a research freezer stood for 74 years. Built by International Harvester in 1952, the freezer had been around longer than most of the researchers who used it. Now, it's one of more than 120 freezers being replaced in a University-wide laboratory cold-storage upgrade program.

Funding of more than $700,000 for the project came from Energize Delaware - also known as the Sustainable Energy Utility - a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Delaware residents and organizations improve energy efficiency and lower energy costs.

"Just one of these older units could use the same energy as a typical single-family home," said Melinda Duncan, associate vice president for research and director of Delaware INBRE. "The new units use one-quarter to one-sixth the energy of the legacy freezers."

The project is projected to save 257,000 kilowatt hours annually - the equivalent of the electricity used to power 24 homes.