Climate change is making the planet hotter, and air conditioning can help keep people cool. Conventional air conditioning technology uses a lot of energy and will have a bigger effect as more people need air conditioners to stay comfortable or even survive.
Scientists from the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center found that air conditioning is responsible for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. According to a joint statement from the NREL and Xerox PARC, emissions are expected to get worse as more people install air conditioners.
The NREL senior research engineer and co-author of the new study said that it was a good and a bad thing. A lot more energy is used and carbon emissions are increased when more people benefit from improved comfort.
Vapor compression cycles cool the air. Refrigerant is used to cool it.
The ozone layer depletes when chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons are used in air conditioning. There are a number of alternatives that don't harm the ozone layer.
A lot of energy is used to over-cool the air in order to make it more comfortable.
Of the 1,950 million tons of carbon dioxide released each year from the energy used to power air conditioning, 531 million tons are to cool the air and 599 million tons are to remove the humidity, according to the NREL. The air conditioner units emit greenhouse gasses while they are being manufactured and transported.
Woods said that the technology was nearly as efficient as possible. We need to look at different approaches to get a transformational change in efficiency.
Blue Frontier is focused on that. The startup is working on technology that will make air conditioning more efficient with less harmful environmental by-products and just scored a $20 million round led by Bill Gates.
Because the construction of the machine is different than a conventional air conditioner, it can use a refrigerant with a lower global warming potential. Betts said the combined effect was an 85% to 87% reduction in global warming contribution.
Daniel Betts said that the technology was found to be a potential bioterrorism weapon. Liquid desiccants have a lower level of Vapor Pressure than water. Water is pulled out of the air when it's humid.
Liquid desiccants are good antiseptics. The liquid desiccant killed it. Betts said that the research led to innovations and discoveries that form the basis of Blue Frontier's technology. One of the benefits of Blue Frontier air conditioning technology is that it can improve indoor air quality.
The Blue Frontier system getting tested at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.The heat pump that regulates the salt concentration of the desiccant is used in the Blue Frontier system but not for cooling.
Betts told CNBC that the air in the building never meets the air in the equipment. It gives us an advantage to use readily available refrigerants that are mildlyflammable, without putting at risk the safety of the people in the building.
The cooling capacity of the air conditioning machine can be stored in a small plastic tank inside the liquid desiccant. That is crucial for a decarbonizing grid that will be increasingly dependent on renewable sources of energy.
When renewable energy is abundant and the electric grid is not congested, the storage allows us to consume the bulk of our energy. Betts told CNBC that they don't consume electricity during peak demand periods.
Summer peak demand causes brown-outs, increases the cost of electricity, and causes more greenhouse gas emissions. It is a factor in forest fires. Betts said that the large amount of electricity flowing through the transmission and distribution lines causes them to heat up when it's hot. It increases the chance that they will come in contact with vegetation.
Storage capacity is one of the reasons why Blue Frontier's solution is attractive to investors.
Blue Frontier's technology is a game-changer for both cooling decarbonization and grid efficiency. It is possible to flatten large afternoon grid peaks in cooling demand by using energy storage and novel cooling technology.
The prototype for the Blue Frontier air conditioner.Betts launched another air conditioner start-up, Be Power Tech, in order to commercialise technology that both was an air conditioner and a source of energy. Betts discovered that building a company on two technologies that aren't yet developed is too much.
Betts said that he made the mistake of putting two completely new technologies dependent on each other and merging them. Double the amount of money required. That company didn't do that well.
Launching a product into a market that will be used is something he learned about.
Betts said that the idea was to not change how people interact with the air conditioner in the building. It should be a replacement or a conventional air conditioner with ours.
That is what Betts and his team are attempting to do.
They are going to scale the technology up for commercial buildings first, since it has been proven in prototypes.
The first commercial product for commercial buildings will be available in the year 2025. According to Betts, a residential product will be on the market by the year 2027.
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