Fridges: Fridge energy costs

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After central heating, domestic cooling appliances like fridges and freezers are the biggest contributor to your energy bill because they’re left switched on round the clock. They account for 20% of the electricity consumed by all of the domestic appliances in your home.

Energy running costs affect the true price of a fridge - one that’s cheap to buy but pricey to power could work out more expensive in the long run.

To help you work out how costly each model is to run, we’ve developed this fridge energy running costs tool. You can use it to compare what fridges cost to power over their lifetime, and weigh up running costs against the purchase price to see which models are the best value overall.

Best value fridges

fridge-open

Best value fridges have low energy costs

Our fridge energy running costs calculator also leads you through to our reviews of all the models featured so you can find a cheap-to-run model that our experts also recommend. To go straight to top-rated fridges, head to our fridge reviews area.

All fridges have EU energy labels ranging from the ultra-efficient A+++ to the positively power-hungry G ratings. But while these labels give a good indication of which models are more energy efficient than others, they won’t tell you how much a fridge will cost you to run.

As part of our in-depth fridge testing we calculate exactly how much electricity each model uses and what it costs to power. We’ve found huge differences in running costs between models with the same energy label.

Which? energy saver

Which? Best Buy fridges with low running costs qualify for our Energy Saver award 

Which? energy efficient fridges

Which? Best Buy fridges are fast at chilling food and keep a constant temperature across all shelves and compartments, even if the outside room temperature changes.

To highlight Best Buy fridges that are energy efficient and have low running costs, we’ve introduced our Which? Energy Saver logo.

This award is given to Best Buy appliances that meet our own energy-efficiency criteria, and is designed to help you choose products that use less electricity than models.

For fridges, we only award the Energy Saver logo to Best Buys whose energy use is in the top 20% of all the models we've tested, with separate rankings for tall and under counter models.

The Which? Energy Saver logo is a Which? rating and is not in any way endorsed by or associated with official EC labelling laws or regulations.

Fridge reliability

A fridge that has a top energy label and low running costs won’t save you money if it breaks down after a couple of years. The costs involved in repairing or replacing it will quickly outweigh the energy-savings benefits.  

Choosing a reliable fridge that will stand the test of time will help you get the most out of your appliance. Based on the findings of thousands of Which? members, we’ve built reliability profiles of the 20 top fridge brands, including Bosch, Beko and Hotpoint.

In our fridge reliability review, you can see which brands are consistently dependable and which are prone to problems. Cross reference our brand reliability verdicts with our in-depth fridge reviews to choose the best and most reliable model.

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