Solar Airconditioning

Endless research went into exploring the use of solar energy in air cooling and to developing solar air conditioner. Several difficulties challenged the researchers' efforts, these difficulties included among others the absence of solar supplies during the night and the inability to store sufficient compensating power reserve, and the large amount of amps needed by compressors. Advances in air cooling technologies, the use of compressor-less systems, and the use of mixed power sources air conditioners made solar air conditioning possible.

Today, there are several pure-solar and mixed AC-solar powered airconditioners available for residential and commercial uses, and with capacity ranges from 600 to 360,000 BTU. These systems include compressor-based systems, compressor-less systems, chiller-based systems, in addition to the evaporative and swamp air coolers.

Compressor-based solar airconditioners

Compressor-based solar airconditioners are typical of the systems currently used. These systems can either use pure-solar energy or utilized a mix of solar energy and non-solar electricity, and they can be of capacity of up to 48,000 BTU, and split-unit or centralized duct configurations.

The pure solar system use energy generated from PV array and stored in batteries bank for night use. These systems are relatively new and it utilize DC power rather than AC. The mixed solar-ac powered airconditioners can save more than half of the electricity used by a non-solar air conditioner, thus saving more than half of your electrical bill.

These systems can be used to replace the conventional electrical air conditioning systems.

Chiller-based large solar airconditioners

Absorption chiller based solar air conditioners are common in large-scale commercial application. These systems does not use compressor and it require very little amount of electricity to operate the systems' pumps and fan motors.

However, it is important to keep in mind that these systems will not operate during the night hours or in the absence of sunlight, therefore, it cannot be used as a replacement for the existing commercial AC systems but as co-existing system, configured to be the main system during the day when the sun is shining and the air conditioning is needed the most.

These systems can save of up to 90% of the electric used by conventional systems; thus, it pay for itself in no time at all.

Evaporative air coolers

Evaporative solar air cooling systems utilize the basics of the traditional evaporative and swamp air coolers; however, run on solar energy instead of electric power. These system can be either AC or DC based, and it operate unrestricted during nights and in the absence of sun if supported by batteries. Solar air coolers which equipped with DC motors are extremely efficient compared with the AC operated coolers.

Evaporative air coolers are available for both residential and commercial applications, and it can be deployed indoors, and outdoors, and in semi-open areas like workshops and warehoused.