(Illustration of how the solar-powered air-con might look)
Solar energy has long been considered as a source of power. And more recently, a number of projects have been created in Israel to do more than simply heat water as the conventional sun boilers have been doing for years. Solar energy is now being developed to work in powering air conditioning systems in both home and commercial enterprises.
A Beer Sheva based company, EWA Technologies Group (EWA: for Earth, Water, Air), is developing a solar powered air conditioning system that converts solar energy to a low cost energy system that harnesses the sun’s power and uses it to create cooling.
EWA’s solar cooling process is basically simple: A special solar collector collects and stores solar energy, and then transforms the accumulated energy into effective cooling. A special granular material, placed within the solar collector, reacts with a special liquid cooling fluid that send cool air into a room or office in a process similar to an inter cooling radiator system in an automobile.
The main difference is that instead of relying on a power source such as gasoline or electricity, the system receives its power directly from the sun, which costs virtually nothing and is entirely environmentally friendly. Acting as a heat exchanger, the liquid solution can function also at night, for as long as 8 hours. This means that the system will continue to supply cool air long after sunset; and will continue to do so until the sun “rises” the next morning
Great for Mediterranean Climate
Naturally, the system works best in climates which have many continuous days of sunshine, such as Israel and other Mediterranean countries. EWA Technologies Group also promotes it systems in African countries as well as in countries like India, Australia, China, and Mexico.
Dr. Etan Bar, the company’s CEO, says that his company are working on a number on environmentally friendly projects, including a solar power “water dripper” for providing low cost irrigation systems to hot and desert regions, as well as a air humidity conversion devise that turns water vapor in the air into clean water for both drinking and other uses, including agriculture.
Although the solar air conditioning system is still in the developmental stage, Dr. Bar and his staff hope to have a functioning prototype ready soon that will eventually be able to be mass produced and sold on the world market.
Whether the system will actually be manufactured in Israel has not yet been decided by Bar and his associates as it may prove more economically feasible to produce the system in either China or another Asian country.
But seeing that the technology has been developed in Israel is but another positive factor for a country which has had to do much of its own improvising in its mere 60 years of nationhood.
Get fired up with more Solar Energy on Green Prophet:
Brightsource Launches Solar Energy Plant in the Negev
David Faimen’s Light of a Thousand Suns
Avi Kribus Brings Solar Powered Air Con to Your Home
Author: Maurice Picow
Maurice Picow grew up in Oklahoma City, U.S.A., where he received a B.S. Degree in Business Administration. Following graduation, Maurice embarked on a career as a real estate broker before making the decision to move to Israel. After arriving in Israel, he came involved in the insurance agency business and later in the moving and international relocation fields. Maurice became interested in writing news and commentary articles in the late 1990’s, and now writes feature articles for the The Jerusalem Post as well as being a regular contributor to Green Prophet. He has also written a non-fiction study on Islam, a two volume adventure novel, and is completing a romance novel about a forbidden love affair. Writing topics of particular interest for Green Prophet are those dealing with global warming and climate change, as well as clean technology - particularly electric cars.
I wonder why this idea wasn’t explored to its full potential? I mean, this looks brilliant and could work amazingly, at least theoretically. What lacks to make this kind of technology actually work and to implement it in a comercial air conditioning system? Thanks in advance.
we are thankful to find your information on solar thermal cooling
but is this a proven technology, how will t is built for vapor compression technologies. how to develop sch plan, and whom to invite. thankful if you guide us to the requirements.please educate us the technologies in vogue.
I think this is a great idea to power air conditioning with solar energy. This informative posting was really enjoyable to read.
Solar energy is good but it still need a lot of development to be used with major electricity appliances in the house such as air conditiioner. But this is one of the good example of such a development.
Solar energy is good but it still need a lot of development to be used with major electricity appliances in the house such as air conditiioner. But this is one of the good example of such a development.
Many appliance parts today could be eco-friendly if the company producing them would actually want that. Such a course of action would probably require a little bit of investing and higher costs for the product, but not very much. In this time of crisis, I guess that solar power is not a priority as it should be.
we are the manufacturer of solar freezers and solar air conditional in china We use two 85W solar panels (34V) and put two pcs of 100 amperehour batteries together ,because our products will more stable @24V than 12V ,so that why i use 34V solar panels to recharger 24V batteries. in order to keep my freezers cooling performance ,our products of Power consumption maybe high,when our freezer start ,it will be around 2-2.5A @24v ,But that just last around 10-15 minutes ,then our power is around 1.5-2A @24V.
And there is my testing detail date as follows:
1. Solar panels : the highest recharge power is 6A @24V in the middle day. But the lowest power recharger is 0.8-1A @24V ,that is to say ,some day have no sun my solar panels still can recharger the batteries but it’s very limited.
2. Solar batteries: we use highest quality of solar acid batteries, which can be used over three years .
If there is no electronic in the batteries ,and they need 8-10 hours to recharger the batteries with our 170W solar panels . And if there is no sun but our batteries power is full besides without recharger from solar panels ,our freezer still can last working for 28-30 hours because our freezer power consumption is high . In order to solve this problem,we add the AC/DC adaptor for AC power use ,if there is no power in the batteries and without sun can’t be charger ,we use AC power let the freezer still working .our AC/DC adaptor is 6A/24V ,and from 110-240V 50-60HZ
3. Solar charger controller: we use 20A/24V solar charger controller. We added power consumption table ,power recharger table and batteries voltage table all of this will tell you the power consumption, recharger power and our batteries voltage , when the batteries voltage reached at around 22.3V ,our freezer&fridge will stop( low voltage protection function)
as you request we have 30L 45L and 60L freezer meet you .
and we also developed the 258L chest freezers
if you want to buy any of my products just contact me at
[email protected]
Hi,
Very helpful information for me. I installed my own solar power system 2 years ago and some of my friends are also doing the same thing. But none of us have tried your project.
Thanks for your article.
Hi,
I’m very keen on importing Solar Powered Air Conditioners to Sri lanka
as there is a great demand for them according to the research i have
personally done.
I have already got prospective buyers in the Business and Private
sectors. Please let me know how we can get started on this at your
earliest convenience. Looking forward to a favourable reply.
Thanking You,
Yours Sincerely,
Amir Abdeen
Tel: 00 94 777 788884
Other Requests:
Minimum order quantity
Specifications/International standards met
Sample availability/Cost
Payment method
Delivery time
Company details
This information is very useful for me.,solar energy is good for the environment. I also done different project about “SOLAR ENERGY AND SOLAR POWER “
Hi Karin
I am working in a similar project, the only different is that my project concentrate on rail way air con, do you have any further information or references that can help me on that project.
Kind Regards
Ali
The thought of heat energy translated to give cooling system never entered my mind not until I saw this blog about solar powered air conditioning system. This will be highly appreciated both in residential and industrial sector. Given the advantage of being economical, you won’t highly depend on electricity or other power source, if you come to think of it, this is considered as “free for all” in the long run. The idea of having it at home is mainly recommended for the sole purpose that you can still use it during night time even the sun is sleeping. This is an amazing product that will truly go a long way.
Hi…………
I like the EWA Technologies Powers Air Conditioning With Solar Energy.
it is powerful idea, I am interested in the water system for a school/orphanage in Ketosi, Uganda, which my Church has strong ties to. I understand that it is solar powered, or at least can be.
Hello,
I just saw the story about your water extraction system from a link on http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com.
I am interested in the water system for a school/orphanage in Ketosi, Uganda, which my Church has strong ties to. I understand that it is solar powered, or at least can be.
I need to get the kids water, then I can upgrade their diet etc. following that.
There are 500 or so Children in the facility currently. As I don’t know the sizes of your systems, I don’t know of any other questions.
Please email me with details, sizing, costs.
Thank you very much,
Chris Worth
Dear Madam, dear Sir,
we want to use solar energy for our 70 m2 house in Benguela, Angola. We are thinking of 5 – 6 hrs/day. We hav the following electronical equipment:
1 fridge 250 ltr
1 refridgerator 220 ltr
1 Air Conditioner 12000 BTU
2 Air Conditioner 9000 BTU
1 TV
1 Satelite decoder fuuer TV
1 Stereo sistem (normal)
1 Microwave 40 ltr
8 100 W lamps
Currently we are well served using a 10 Amp interruptor and had no problems at all, using either the big air con + the other equipments at the same time or the 2 small ones + the eother equipment.
Our idea is the following: We would like to use solar energy for about 5 – 6 hrs/day for the above constallation.
Now our questions:
What would be the size of a complete sistem to do this?
We are thinking that calculating an hourly production and storage of 2 – 3 Kilowatt are sufficient. That means, we can accumulate 48 – 72 KW/day, which gives us an hourly consumption of 6 – 10 KW/hr over 5 – 6 hrs, w/o using 100 % of the stored energy.
Please let us know, whether our assumptions are right and how big must be the complete sistem (panels, batteries, etc.) to reach to this point and how much would it cost CIF Lobito, Angola.
Thank you very much in advance.
Hoping hearing from you soon I remain
Yours faithfully
Stefan Jurdzik
The subject is very intresting and good for the environment, I would like to know more of technical specfications of the Solar Air Conditioner.
Kindly let me know the same
with regards,
subbu
Dave, there is a link to the company at the bottom of the story. http://www.wt-ewa.com/
Please let us know if you write about it. We’d like to see the article.
– Karin
I would like to write an article about this and maybe talk about it in more detail. Your post above does not contain a link, and the only EWA Technologies I can find on the web is with EWA = Electronic Warfare Associates.