What is a Solar Air Conditioner?
It is cooling and heating system that provides a cooling cycle during the summer and a heating cycle during the winter. It operates the same as a conventional air conditioner except it uses a solar thermal panel as a heat exchanger to reduce the energy load on the compressor and helps produce more liquid refrigerant. The more liquid refrigerant coming into your home, the quicker your home reaches its desired temperature. The quicker you reach your desired temperature, the less energy you use.
According to FPL Heating your home can cost as much as 2 to 3 times the cost of cooling your home. Conventional A/C systems use a "heat strip" to heat the home. A "heat strip" is no more than a big hair dryer. How many hair dryers would it take to heat your home? That's an idea of how much energy is needed to heat a home. A solar thermal heat pump provides heating by absorbing heat from the outside air and heat from the solar panel and transferring it inside.
How does a Solar Air Conditioner work?
An evacuated tube solar panel superheats the refrigerant as it passes through the solar panel manifold. It uses the sun's free energy, to help "compress" the refrigerant just like a "compressor" does on a conventional air conditioner.This increases the pressure on the refrigerant so when it travels to the condensing coil in your outside unit it condenses the refrigerant from a gas to a much colder liquid refrigerant than traditional air conditioners. This process allows more liquid refrigerant to pass through an expansion valve and become significantly colder. In return, your desired temperature is achieved in an extremely shorter amount of time and expense.The compressor "crawls" rather than "runs", which in turn saves an incredible amount of energy and money.
