Archive for the ‘Environmental’ Category

When the heat and humidity have you feeling like melted chocolate, all you can think of is getting inside and cooling off with air conditioning. Could you imagine the power of the sun cooling your home or business? It is possible with solar air-conditioning.

Traditional air conditioning takes hot air and blows it over metal coils that are cooled with a pressurized gas. This method emits greenhouse gas and can pollute the air. Plus conventional air conditioner usage during peak hours can put such a demand for electricity on local power grids that there are often outages.

Some cooling systems that use solar pv are powered by direct current from batteries charged by the suns rays. Some are wired directly into the panels. Hybrid systems alternate between both. These work like standard air conditioning as in blowing hot air across cooled coils. But by drawing electricity from an alternate source, they dont produce high demands on the local power grids.

Solar air conditioners also use a method known as chillers or evaporative coolers. These work by heating and cooling water through evaporation and condensation. Using water saturated material, the chiller blows hot air through the cooled material with a fan and motor that are powered by the sun. These units are also powered by direct sun energy or from solar charged batteries. Most units operate with a maximum of 500 watts of energy per hour compared to a conventional central unit that pulls about 3,500 watts per hour. Average window air conditioning units use about 900.