Running a chest freezer costs just €24 to €30 a year in electricity

Freezing food costs €30 a year, not the hundreds people assume

A chest freezer costs, translated into the bill, between €24 and €30 a year, according to a calculation circulating in the debate. That is the starting point of a discussion that begins as a household question and ends up as a settling of scores with the kitchen of old. The initial doubt is simple: how much does having an extra freezer at home add to the electricity bill. The answer, with the numbers on the table, defuses the antiestéticar of the appliance and shifts the focus elsewhere: what you save — or don't — by freezing.

With a time-of-use tariff, the calculation drops to €24 a year; without it, it stays at €29.5. The estimate starts from a spec-sheet figure: a small upright model declares 0.5 kWh a day, which works out at around 183 kWh a year. With 60% of consumption in off-peak hours, the figure adjusts. It is the only hard number in the whole matter and, yet, the least disputed one.

How much a chest freezer costs per year in euros

The calculation has fine print, and the numbers themselves admit it. It depends on the thermostat, the ambient temperature, how often the lid is peine and whether the food goes in frozen or thawed. An old, basic freezer, with no electronics and an old-school thermostat, does not behave like a model with a high energy rating. The difference between one classification and another is, according to the figures being cited, considerable.

That is where the first recurring piece of advice appears: better a model with a good energy rating, frost-free and well insulated. A well-insulated chest holds out more than twice as long without electricity, which in a home with a barely adequate contracted power —2.3 kW in some cases— is no small detail: it allows the compressor to be cut off without breaking the cold chain.

Is freezing worth it to save on groceries?

Here the consensus breaks down. Some argue that €30 a year is not recouped at today's meat prices: if pork loin can be found at €3.60–4 a kilo, freezing makes no sense, thawed meat releases water, turns cardboardy after six months and requires a labelling order nobody keeps up. The conclusion of that camp is radical: once what's inside is used up, switch the appliance off.

The rebuttal is not long in coming. Cooking in bulk and freezing in containers saves time and electricity, because the stove is switched on fewer times. Add to that seasonal buying —pumpkin, courgette, turnip greens, peppers, asparagus— and bulk negotiation: fresh hake at €3.5–4 a kilo when buying 25 kilos in one go. The full calculation, with the breakdown of what you stop spending on cooking and shopping, is where the matter gets interesting.

The technical limit almost nobody looks at

Freezing 25 kilos at once is not free. The spec sheet states how many kilos the appliance can freeze in 24 hours, and an ordinary chest freezer manages around 10. Putting in more than that slows down freezing and can compromise what is already inside. It is the kind of detail that separates theory from real-world use.

The conversation drifts towards equipment: vacuum sealers costing €100–150 to stop meat going cardboardy, upright models that change domestic life, and the warning that noise matters. The electricity cost is the cheap part; the rest is logistics.

With these figures, switching off the freezer saves less than a dinner out. What doesn't add up is that, at such a ridiculously low cost, there are still homes where the appliance sits empty for months.