Cool runnings
15 Jan 2000
A spin off of the Air CHP development which has yet to be commercialised is its potential to offer cooling as well as hot air, water and electricity. Cooling from an Air CHP system involves the effective use of the waste heat to drive an absorption system.
The effect could be used directly to cool the air, turning the Air CHP system into an efficient air conditioning plant, or by using less conventional absorption technologies, providing process cooling at sub-zero temperatures.
Available lithium bromide systems coupled to CHP can provide approximately 1kW of cooling for each kilowatt of power generated. The driving heat for the absorption process is hot water at 100 C and air cooling to around 10 C is possible.
However, Aircogen is concentrating on exhaust gas and hot air driven processes which give opportunities to achieve higher performance and lower temperatures, covering a range of applications.
