Viewing posts tagged "Air Conditioning"

Tax Breaks for Ice Air Conditioners? A Proposal Is in Congress

Install an ice maker; get a tax break.

Congressional representatives Mike Thompson (D-CA), Wally Herger (R-CA) and Earl Pomeroy (D-S.D.) have introduced the Thermal Energy Cooling and Heating Act of 2009 (HR 3918) that would give a 30 percent tax credit and accelerated depreciation to individuals or businesses that install thermal energy systems that reduce peak demand.

The primary thermal energy system on the market today that fits this description is the ice cooler marketed by both Ice Energy and Calmac. In these systems, ice is made at night when power is cheaper (or generated but not consumed). It then melts during the day: Heat exchangers allow the chilly vapors to circulate through the building and cool them.

The definition also seems to include solar air conditioners, which use heat collectors and evaporating refrigerants to cool buildings. Chromasun is working on those.

There are a couple of trends wrapped into this bill:

1. Energy efficiency is getting more attention. Right now, businesses that install solar receive a 30 percent tax credit. You can get an 30 percent tax credit for energy efficiency retrofits, but only for the first $1,500 of work. The Thermal Act provides what seem to be comparable incentives. Secretary of Energy Steve Chu has long been a supporter of improving building energy efficiency.

2. Waxman-Markey may get piecemeal'ed. The bill hasn't passed yet, of course. And if it doesn't, expect to see a flurry of bills that concentrate on very specific parts of the overall bill. Efficiency enjoys bipartisan support. It cuts power consumption and generally can help create jobs because much of the revenue is generated from installation.

3. Air conditioning is cool and lots of new companies have come into the market (see the cavalcade here). In all, air conditioners gobble up around 5.2 percent of the total energy in the U.S. and about 10 percent of the electricity. (Building operations account for around 39 percent of U.S. power according to the Department of Energy and 13 percent of that power in residential and commercial buildings goes to air conditioners.) Not only are air conditioners themselves inefficient, the sensors and other mechanisms often aren't networked property for dynamic control. Walk around your building and count the female co-workers who are wrapped up in Snuggies sometime.

4. Air conditioning is going to get even cheaper. Utilities are currently contemplating programs under which they would pay for new AC units. A rebate and a tax credit? What CFO could say no?

Masdar City Selects BASF as Preferred Supplier

Masdar City, the futuristic green metropolis being built in Abu Dhabi, has selected BASF to be its preferred supplier for building materials.

BASF – familiar to middle aged Americans as a supplier of blank cassette tapes – is one of the world's big chemical and materials suppliers. Among its various building products are polystyrene insulation and chemicals for phase-change air conditioning.

Phase-change air conditioners essentially carry heat out of a room with the assistance of chemicals. The chemicals absorb energy (i.e., heat) in a room and in the process turn into a gas. The chemicals are then cycled through a series of pipes. The energy is dissipated, the gas turns into a solid, liquid or gel, and then re-enters the room that needs cooling. NREL has been testing this out for a while. Air conditioning can account for close to 70 percent of energy demand in hot locales like Abu Dhabi and nearby Dubai.

Phase-change materials could also conceivably be put into flooring and other materials.

Does the announcement mean that BASF gets every Masdar contract? No, but an inside track isn't bad. Abu Dhabi plans to spend billions on its various Masdar projects. Other ones include campuses created by NYU and MIT.

The emirate both wants to show how green construction can reduce energy demand through these projects, but also try to create local businesses that can compete in the new energy market.

Coolerado Wins UC Davis Air Conditioning Prize

Coolerado won the Western Cooling Challenge sponsored by UC Davis with a unit shipping later this year that could, if deployed properly, cut the power consumed by air conditioners on top of big box retailers by way over 50 percent.

The company's H-80, which has been shown off at a number of trade shows, is designed for the arid, hot environments in the western U.S. Most air conditioners are actually designed for the muggy climes of the East Coast. The system uses a form of indirect evaporative cooling that relies on the Maisotsenko Cycle (no relation to Sammy "The Squirrel" Maisotsenko). In a nutshell, outside air is humidified and then de-humidified through a series of plastic plates. The diagram shows more.

You may scoff, but air conditioning is one big energy hog. It comprises 50 percent of the demand for power during peak periods in California, according to various estimates, and the figure is around 30 percent nationwide. In all, Air conditioners gobble up around 5.2 percent of the total energy in the U.S. and about 10 percent of the electricity. (Building operations account for around 39 percent of U.S. power according to the Department of Energy and 13 percent of that power in residential and commercial buildings goes to air conditioners.)

In fact, you're probably reading this in an office that might be cool enough if you just could open a window.

"We are extremely pleased to announce that Coolerado's product exceeded our expectations. While our target was a 40 percent reduction in energy use and peak electricity demand compared to conventional cooling units, the Coolerado H-80 tests indicate almost 80 percent energy-use savings and over 60 percent peak-demand reduction," said Mark Modera, director of the UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center in a prepared statement. 

The H-80 was designed principally for light commercial buildings. One H-80 is able to cool 1,500 to 3,000 square feet of commercial floor area. The company is taking orders for delivery later in the year.

Sopogy to Show SoCal How to Keep It Cool

A program to feature solar air conditioners in Southern California now includes a system from Sopogy. The company has developed a smaller version of a conventional solar thermal power equipment system, which uses the sun's heat to generate electricity.

The Honolulu-based Sopogy said it began operating its system today on the rooftop of a Southern California Gas Co. building in Downey.

The system is scheduled to run for 18 months. The gas company's program aims to show new technologies that could cool homes more efficiently than conventional air conditioning systems. The program also features a system from U.K.-based HelioDynamics. Both systems could provide a total of 10 tons of cooling for three homes, SoCal Gas said.

Utilities in warm parts of the country have been keen on cutting air conditioning's energy consumption, and some of them offer incentives to use more energy-efficient models. An cooling system typically accounts for more than half of a building's power use, said SoCal Gas. A growing number of companies are developing new cooling technologies  (see a list of companies developing new cooling systems).

Sopogy's system uses a series of curved and coated aluminum reflectors to concentrate the sunlight to heat fluid, which is then run through the air conditioning system's absorption chiller to produce the cool air (see the company's video on how it works).

Sopogy's system is about half the size of those that are being erected in Spain by companies such as Solar Millennium and Abengoa Solar. Sopogy is marketing its equipment as lightweight and easy to ship, and small enough to be installed on rooftops.

Last December, Sopogy said it had lined up a developer to build a 50-megawatt farm in central Spain. It also has installed systems in Hawaii.

HelioDynamics, on the other hand, has developed a system using flat mirrors to turn sunlight into heat.

Optimum Energy’s Software for Controlling Air Conditioners Gets $4.5M

Optimum Energy, one of our 11 companies to watch in air conditioning, has landed $4.5 million in equity financing to help it scale up.

Optimum essentially makes software that dynamically controls the chillers – huge, honking machines that cool water for air conditioning systems in skyscrapers. An average building might require 1 to 1.4 kilowatts of energy to chill a ton of water for its air conditioning system, CEO Nathan Rothman told us earlier this year. A building made to LEED platinum specs might require 0.7 per ton. Rothman says Optimum can reduce it to 0.5 kilowatts per ton.

One of Optimum's systems, destined for Adobe's headquarters in San Jose, Calif., will shave 750,000 kilowatt hours off of the building's annual load. Air conditioner power can be both cut for office space and data centers.

"There are 150,000 buildings that meet our criteria," he said. If the software were implanted in each one, 75 gigawatts could be taken off the grid, he asserted. (We've got a more complete profile here. Rothman also has an unusual career: Before air conditioners, he owned a hippie clothing store and a yacht builder.)

The company also named Bert Hogue chief financial officer and Gary Gigot, Microsoft and Visio alumnus, to chief marketing officer.

Let me repeat: Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy in America and 76 percent of electricity. This total includes computers and things like that, but space cooling consumes about 13 percent of the power consumed in buildings, according to statistics from the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford presented at the recent Green Building Forum. Heating and ventilation take up 12 percent and 7 percent respectively. Thus, in all, controlling air temperature and flow takes up 32 percent of the power in buildings or 12.8 percent of the total energy consumed in America. It's a big issue.

_{Source: Precourt}

Saving Gas on Changing Windows

Being more frugal about using the air conditioning system in your car can save fuel, but it doesn’t mean you have to sweat away on the freeway.

A new study shows that by using heat-resistant glass you can reduce the need for air conditioning – essentially you can change-out the windows, at least for a plug-in. With heat-resistant glass, the cabin gets colder, blocking out more of the heat compared to regular car windows, and thus increases fuel efficiency (when turning the air conditioning down).

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Pittsburgh Glass Works (PGW) conducted the study to show how changing to PGW's Sungate EP heat-resistant windows can improve fuel economy.

"The adjusted, utility factor-weighted fuel economy increased from 36.8 to 42.9 mpg for the Sungate EP thermal load case, while the adjusted, UF-weighted electrical energy consumption was roughly equivalent," said John Rugh, Senior Mechanical Engineer for NREL, in a statement.

According to PGW, the Sungate EP glazing has been designed to reject almost 97 percent of the sun’s infra-red energy.

There are other ways to avoid heat radiation from windows. The PGW technology could be compared with PhotoSolar, a Danish company focusing on lowering the impact of solar radiation when it comes to heat by using progressive micro lamells.

PhotoSolar has a sun film that keeps out 50 percent of solar radiation and also plans to make windows that can generate power as well. However, their sun film is made to fit in building windows and not in cars. At least not yet. (See video: The Solar Window.)

Since plug-in hybrids often are more fuel efficient than regular cars to start with, the impact of increased air conditioning economy really shows on the bill. PGW says that’s why it focuses its technology on these types of vehicles.