3 ms·
> if you run your refrigerant loop through the ground instead of cooling it using the hot ambient air In the same vein, rejecting heat to the cooler night air
by zkms 9y ago
> if you run your refrigerant loop through the ground instead of cooling it using the hot ambient air
In the same vein, rejecting heat to the cooler night air is a lot more efficient than using hot day air.
You can operate a chiller at night and generate a bunch of ice efficiently. During the day, you can melt the ice for cooling at day -- without operating any sort of compressor.
Once the melted water gets higher than the desired chilled water temperature, you can turn on the chiller, but you use the water for heat rejection -- which is still colder than the hot outside air.
- Scramblejams 9y agoInteresting, are there any writeups you could point me to on how to size a system like this for the average home and what the energy costs are like?
- epistasis 9y agoA Southern California utility is testing out Ice Energy's units, but the focus is more on demand response/energy storage than on efficiency: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/ice-energy-will-provide-1-mw-of-residential-storage-to-southern-california/435676/ http://www.utilitydive.com/news/ice-energy-will-provide-1-mw... Though the NYTimes article points out that the improvement from AC efficiency is mostly related to peak demand shaving as well, so it serves a similar purpose. Their commercial page is here: https://www.ice-energy.com/residential/ https://www.ice-energy.com/residential/