Solar Air Conditiong?

Q: are there any commercial solar thermal air conditioners? i'm thinking of actual refridgeration, not silly chimneys or anything like that.

A: I have seen three types, solar steam turning a compressor, solar heat driving the heat side of a loop, and solar PV. Very expensive, however very large systems also produce a lot of heat that can be used in some commercial processes thus saving some energy costs. The simplest system I have seen is solar PV driving a 24 volt marine compressor with a small batt bank. This system ran a freezer (with holdover plates) and AC for a well built & shaded 1800 sg foot home. The person wanted to try to dump the waste heat into a hot tub by a closed loop transfer system. Was also going to add batts and a small inverter to run some lights. In 1985 dollars he spent $6000. The solar panels were 8 years old when he brought them. I think he under used the system. you could use a solar chimmney to remove heat from your attic, which would lower the load for your high tech solar ac. Sanyo introduced a high efficncy ac/pv unit in Japan a few years back. weather it has reached the states yet ?The heat from absorption coolers (your second type, ammonia absorption what I have in mind) haven't really been fully utilized. The heat released after cooling can be further used to recharge a dessicant wheel cooler which removes humidity coupled with an evaporative cooler (adds the humidity back but drops the temp a lot). Thermoelectric cells could add the final touch, generating electricity off the high humidity waste heat to run the motors for the last two coolers and a fan. Any unused electricity would go into another thermoelectric cooling device on the air outlet. The cold side air flow chart might look like this: Inside air intake (fan) -> dessicant cooler -> absorption cooler -> evaporative cooler -> thermoelectric cooler -> Inside air outlet The hot side air flow chart could look like this: Outside air intake (fan) -> Heat added from hot side of thermoelectric cooler -> absorption cooler waste heat added -> dessicant wheel recharge -> thermoelectric power generator -> Outside air waste heat outlet I know that most of the items are not particularly efficient, for example thermoelectrics aren't as good at power generation as they are at power consumption, but combined they sure squeeze the heck out of every BTU. Alas, nothing like this exists commercially, strictly a project for a tinkerer. If I had the money, I'd be building it.

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