Solar Powered Air Conditioning Getting Real
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.19.06
Anybody in North America can understand the need for solar powered air conditioning today- there is so much sun, so much heat and everyone is hiding inside while all of our electric utiilities go into overload. On June 22, Matteran Energy fired up its new design for a low temperature system that produced 41 degree F temperature refrigeration using relatively warm water (160 degrees) right out of a common rooftop solar hot water heater. "This test was in preparation for demonstrating an air conditioner fueled by renewable energy sources. Our simple vapor cycle uses a venturi to produce the evaporation of refrigerant, and requires no compressor, no feedpump, & no absorption to cycle the process." Low grade heat like this is cheap and easy from a number of sources, including sun, geothermal, factory waste heat or burning just about anything.
It is a patented system developed by Jeff Sterling in Florida, and is called the Sterling Cycle, building on the 150 year old Rankine cycle. -watch the animation here. -we have watched it three times and can't figure it out. Jeff makes big promises: "This patented cycle utilizes renewable thermal energy at its most economically efficient collection temperatures. The cycle appears very promising for remote homes and small businesses. Low temperature thermal sources (solar, geothermal, co-generation, and OTEC) are projected to produce power for 10% of the cost of comparable photovoltaic (PV), or 50% that of concentrated solar and diesel power generation." We hope he is able to get into production soon! ::Matteran Energy
I hope this goes mainstream.Your site made Reddit.com
Cool system. A little something needs to be said about the scale of the system though.
The venturi that is used to pump the working fluid is referred to in the powerplant industry as a steam injector, they have been in use for over 100 years so alot is known about their efficiency. Although they are about 97% thermally efficient, they are only about 10% mechanically efficient. This means that the r-22 vapor that is being used to power the injector has to contain about 10 times as much energy as the fluid that is being removed from the evaporator (cooled space). In order to remove 12,000 BTUs per hour (capacity of a standard "1 ton" window air conditioner) from your conditioned space, your solar collectors would have to provide 120,000 BTUs worth of heat. thats about 750 square feet of solar collector(largely dependant upon solar collector design, weather, and location).To provide central air for my entire house would require about 1,700 square feet of solar collector area. (my house is only 1100 square feet). All of this heat has to be rejected somewhere too. The unit cooling my house would almost have to have a river flowing past it to provide enough cooling water to make this system possible. Very cool design for a well insulated refrigerator in a backwoods cabin. It doesn't quite seem practical for whole house air conditioning though.
I've got a good way to solve both problems. for collection of solar energy, my hot asphalt driveway should do, and for waste heat, my pool will do nicely. I assume everyone who can afford this system that doesn't build it themselves has both of those things.
I want to buy a Solar power air conditioner to my home,
Please let me know how I can get it,
it is better I will travel to Singapore and if i can purcharse from there will be better,
Thanks
Priyantha
I am in Sri LAnka
It is really good news. I will be much appreciated if you can send more information as well as the price
Best Regards
Humaid
I am involved with a not-for-profit glass art school and we are in the process of designing a rather unheard of "green" hot shop. Several furnaces running at 2100F 24 hours a day as well as 6 "reheat" furnaces operating at 2300F for a great part of the day certainly provides the BTUs necessary for this system. We are building a recuperative bypass furnace to recycle a great deal of the heat back in to the furnace, but still have an extremely high volume of high temp exhaust air. We plan on capturing that heat with radiators mounted in the ventilators and use it both for heat in cold weather as well as to heat water for the facility using isolated heat exchange. This new technology is very exciting, especially since the drawbacks of heat production and recycling seem to be inherently addressed in a glass hot shop such as we propose. Any further info would be much appreciated, thanks.
Don Beck
SiNaCa School of Glass
This system would be easy to intergrate with marine systems of large commercial scale down to relatively small scale pleasure boating.Most large ships have a waste heat system for heating intermediate fuel oils. The waste heat from the vessels exhaust stack routinely runs 850 f to an excess of 1000 f . Small vessels never utilize this waste heat. There would be ample surface area on the exhaust for heat transfer to copper piping. Using this system on board vessels would reduce fouel consumption hence reducing co2 emissions.
we are in real estate cunsruction. we looking for alternative energy innovative products. please send your product catalog.
regards
marreddy