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John O | September 2017

Scientists test cooling system that works without electricity


stanford university (palo alto, calif.) scientists continue to build on research that was originally published in 2014 by testing a new cooling system on the roof of the packard electrical engineering building on campus that demonstrates how to use radiative sky cooling to dramatically cut air conditioning costs.

 


a?fluid-cooling?panel?designed?by?shanhui?fan,?professor?of?electrical?engineering?
at?stanford,?and?former?research?associates?aaswath?raman?and?eli?goldstein?
being?tested?on?the?roof?of?the?packard?electrical?engineering?building. 
(aaswath?raman/stanford university)

 

according to a report from the university, the scientists working on the project have found a company, skycool systems, to continue testing and commercializing the technology.

 

“radiative sky cooling is a natural process that everyone and everything does, resulting from the moments of molecules releasing heat,” the article explained. “you can witness it for yourself in the heat that comes off a road as it cools after sunset. this phenomenon is particularly noticeable on a cloudless night because, without clouds, the heat we and everything around us radiates can more easily make it through earth’s atmosphere, all the way to the vast, cold reaches of space.”

 

originally, the researchers showed how to cool small wafers of a multilayer optical surface, but the a year later the scientists built a system of panels covered in the optical surface atop pipes of running water.

 

“these panels were slightly more than 2 feet in length on each side and the researchers ran as many as four at a time,” the article added. “with the water moving at a relatively fast rate, they found the panels were able to consistently reduce the temperature of the water 3 to 5 degrees celsius below ambient air temperature over a period of three days.”

 

this experiment led to the system being implemented on the roof of a two-story las vegas office building. researchers calculated the cost-savings and found that in the summer, the system savbed 14.3 megawatt-hours of electricity, which is a 21 percent reduction.

 

“the researchers are focused on making their panels integrate easily with standard air conditioning and refrigeration systems and they are particularly excited at the prospect of applying their technology to the serious task of cooling data centers,” the article said.

 

according to the skycool systems website, this technology will add-on to existing systems and reduce electricity over the course of a day and results in zero water loss, which makes it clean and renewable.

 

the research was recently published in nature energy. the abstract stated:

 

“cooling systems consume 15% of electricity generated globally and account for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. with demand for cooling expected to grow tenfold by 2050, improving the efficiency of cooling systems is a critical part of the twenty-first-century energy challenge.

 

“building upon recent demonstrations of daytime radiative sky cooling, here we demonstrate fluid cooling panels that harness radiative sky cooling to cool fluids below the air temperature with zero evaporative losses, and use almost no electricity.

 

“over three days of testing, we show that the panels cool water up to 5 ?c below the ambient air temperature at water flow rates of 0.2 l min−1 m−2, corresponding to an effective heat rejection flux of up to 70 w m−2.

 

“we further show through modelling that, when integrated on the condenser side of the cooling system of a two-storey office building in a hot dry climate (las vegas, usa), electricity consumption for cooling during the summer could be reduced by 21% (14.3 mwh).”

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