Mayo Clinic Laboratories featured for its switch to energy-efficient, ultra-cold freezers

March 31, 2021

Ultra-cold freezers are vital equipment in laboratories, but old or outdated models can be a significant source of wasted energy. With more than 1,000 ultra-cold lab freezers that, in total, used as much electricity as about 1,000 homes per year, Mayo Clinic identified that it could achieve important cost and energy savings by upgrading its old lab freezers to new models that are more energy-efficient.

A case study recently published on Practice Greenhealth outlined the challenges posed by the prospect of replacing and standardizing Mayo’s freezers, as well as the benefits that accomplishing this project could achieve. Those potential benefits included reducing energy use by more than 60% and saving more than $6 million over 10 years. The report also noted that the updated equipment would have a positive environmental effect: “The new freezers use more sustainable refrigerants, which do not include ozone-depleting substances and have low global warming potential.”

The project is currently in year three of a five-year process to change out the freezers, and more than 300 have been replaced to date.

Read the full case study here.