Networked Fridges 'Negotiate' Electricity Use

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers have developed a way to network household and commercial fridges together in a distributed peer-to-peer fashion that lets them 'negotiate' with each other on the best time to consume electricity. A retrofittable controller is attached to each fridge and then a temperature profile is built around the unit. The controller enables communication between other fridges on the network and also the power source. It enables fridges to work together to decide when to cool down, and thus consume power, based on how much surplus power will be available, and to anticipate power shortages and change their running schedules accordingly to use as little power as possible during these times."

Comments

Cold beer

[pondermaster]

My fridge better not negotiate its way out of cold beer at 7pm.

Re:Won't be useful to many people

[troc]

If I step in the shower all power can be diverted to the water heater, etc.

But what about the forward deflector shields?