Digressing slightly, one of my pet niggles is the number of posh hotel rooms that have their mini-bars running all the time, when I expect the majority of people don't use them, so it is mostly wasted energy. Add that up all over the world, and I expect it is quite a lot.
Agree, and the waste may be even worse than at first appears.
The fridges used in hotel rooms are often of the absorption type rather than the more efficient compressor type. This being due to least first cost and sometimes alleged silent operation.
The small mini-bar fridge in an hotel room may well be using more electricity than a modern full sized fridge in your home.
If the hotel is air conditioned, then EVEN MORE electricity will be used by the air conditioning as it works harder to remove the heat from the fridges.
The trouble is that the cost per room, per day is not that great and most hotel managers cant comprehend the wider or long term picture.
Average loading of an hotel mini-bar-----------------125 watts.
Consumption per 24 hour day------------------------- 3Kwh.
Cost per day at typical
UK▸ electricity price----------- About 50 pence.
To me, that is approaching £200 a year, per room. A significant sum.
Many thousands of pounds a year for a medium size hotel.
To the average hotel manager it is "a few pence a day" and not worth worrying about.
Since I wrote the above, we have a new war and consequent near trebling of electricity prices.
A typical hotel mini bar now costs about £500 a year for electricity, double that in an air conditioned room.
