Research agency explores refrigerator peer-to-peer power management

With all the talk about going green, CSIRO, Australia's national science and research agency has come up with a design in which a network of refrigerators will coordinate their power consumption. Communicating in a peer-to-peer fashion, refrigerators could well coordinate power-grid friendly usage by negotiating which appliance will go into a defrost cycle, for example. Other usage scenario for "better informed" refrigerators could also see them making ice at night when power is at its cheapest.

The focus on the humble refrigerator is not without reason. Other than being an appliance that can be found in every home, it has also been estimated that the refrigerator and freezer consume some 16 percent of American households' power, which is no insubstantial amount of energy. According to the CSIRO website, it is currently seeking commercial partners to further develop the technology.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Ars Technica
- check out this article at CSIRO

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