If it’s a really hot summer, there’s no doubt that having an air conditioner will make the hot evenings a lot more bearable. However, air conditioners do use an incredible amount of electricity. A new company called Chromasun has announced their plan to release a highly efficient air conditioner unit.
The Chromasun air conditioner contains photovoltaic and solar thermal technology that harvest light and heat from the sun. Using a combination of mirrors, receivers and concentrators, the unit is able to offer 75% efficiency compared to the 23% efficiency of traditional solar cells. Chromasun’s device uses 95% less silicon than a conventional solar system with the same power rating, and this is mostly due to the Fresnel concentrator lens used as part of the thermal system.
The Chromasun air conditioner works in a similar way to natural gas double-effect chillers. A liquid in a sealed tube is heated to 220 degrees Celcius, which is used to warm a solution that contains a refrigerant. The refrigerant boils away. When the refrigerant and solution are re-combined, the reaction is endothermic, creating a cooling effect.
The reason why this air conditioning unit is such a cool gadget is because it combines a number of technologies to achieve the designed cooling effect. Nice to see a solution that doesn’t just assume that solar cells will solve all of our energy problems.
Source: Energy Matters