Just recently the weather up here in New England has been very hot and humid making the need for some form of refrigeration on the boat almost essential if one wants to keep the milk cold, or have a cold beer at the end of the day. Assuming that you have room for a fridge on your boat powering it up is always a headache. If you have a shore power connection then the energy usage is not a worry but when away from the dock on a cruise or if the boat is kept on a mooring then things start to get a little more complicated. Sure a small modern marine fridge does not consume as much as some of the electrics on board but on boats that do have fridges they tend to be run 24 hours per day and that does add up, 50 or 60 amps in a 24 hour period.
Dometic are probably the biggest supplier of duel voltage fridges and freezers to boats but what is not often realized is that they also make fridges that run on either 12 or 120 volts or propane. Intended for the RV market there are certain considerations with these not least the explosion hazards, but we have that with stoves anyway and any such risks can be lessened with safe and approved installation practices and monitoring devices. The other thing about propane fridges is that they do no like to be operated at an angle or generally shaken about and for this reason on an RV the stove would typically be operated on 12 volts when under tow as electricity can be supplied from the towing vehicle then switched over to propane after arriving at the campsite and the unit is stationary. This same approach might also be good for smaller boats too which could often have amps top spare when underway but need to conserve battery power when moored or anchored. I have not spoken to Dometic about this idea and I am sure it would not work for all boats but I am sure it would work for something slow and steady like a trawler.
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