SOLAR THERMAL COOLING - A POSSIBLE ANSWER TO RISING AC DEMAND STILL NEEDS A MARKET
With the ever-increasing demand for air conditioners expected to rise dramatically in the next few years, solar thermal cooling could be a plausible, energy-smart solution.
That is if the market would catch on.
Approximately 500 solar cooling installations were completed last year -- and that's globally, with the majority being done in Europe. A clear indication that while the idea has been around for some time, it is still very much a niche market in need of a significant boost. A work in progress, as the saying goes.
David Appleyard, associate editor for Renewable Energy World International Magazine, recently looked at some of the major players who have designed and created "sorption chillers" with small and medium-scale cooling capacity.
A Few of The Players:
SorTech AG - manufactures and distributes adsorption chillers for cooling and air-conditioning applications in the small and medium scale performance range up to 75 kW cooling capacity. Suitable for air-conditioning and cooling of one- or multi-family houses as well as smaller commercial and office buildings, the machines use water as refrigerant.
Solar Next AG - The firm offers its SolarNext chillii Technology and chillii System Controller for the optimized heat management of modern heating systems as well as services such as the measuring and evaluation of ab- and adsorption chiller systems of up to 105 kW of cooling capacity.
Yazaki Corporation - Today, well over 100,000 of the company's units are in operation worldwide, with more than 2000 installations in the EU alone. The installations offer capacities from 17.5 kW to up to 700 kW for such diverse projects as offices, hotels, hospitals and industrial facilities.
AIL Research Inc. - AIL's solar specific SOA Series – the end product of a seven year, US$5 million initiative funded by theDepartment of Energy's SBIR program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – uses patented low-flow technology and, in addition, requires lower activation temperatures than absorption chillers or solid desiccant systems, the company says.
With the technology available, the question then becomes, why isn't it catching on? High costs? Problematic installations? Lack of a useful acronym (STC doesn't ring the same as AC does)? Perhaps all of the above.
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