It sits in a cutout in the galley counter and has very good ventilation for the compressor. I was surprised by how efficient it is. At an ambient temperature in the 70s, it takes about 30-40 minutes to cool to its set temperature (typically 37-40 F). Once there it runs at most 5 minutes an hour to stay cool. It draws about 3.5 amps when running. I generally load it with cold food and then turn it on during the engine run at the beginning of a trip so the cool down occurs when there is plenty of power available from the alternator. After engine shut down the system runs its 5 minutes an hour during warm weather. This week, in the cooler weather it ran about 5 minutes every 90 minutes during the day and 5 minutes every two hours at night. So during July/August it will tend to run about 5 minutes an hour or say 2 hours a day for 7 amp-hours This time of year it runs more like 70 minutes a day and uses about 4.1 amp-hours. I monitor power comsumption with a Victron system. I also monitor charging and power use via the Ganz solar charge controller. This system is on my powerboat, so the engine run tends to fully charge the batteries