Socioeconomic and Environmental Aims

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The national and community benefit obtained from this project is that a friendly air conditioning system is introduced as an alternative for the conventional systems which do not comply with the greenhouse gas emission and global warming issues known to be harmful to the environment. Other benefits achieved could be summarised as the reduction in the use of high grade electrical energy as well as the maintenance costs and the increase in the system efficiency.

The payback period of the system has been determined to be less than three years, however, it is predicted that the initial cost of the system would compare with the conventional units in the medium term commercialisation. The use of solar energy, which is free and does not contribute to the environmental pollution, is one of the main advantages of these systems.

Outcomes

The outcomes of this project will include:

• Development of a comprehensive, experimentally tested prototype for LDSAC.  The prototype will be tested and monitored for several weeks to investigate the key attributes of the design to permit optimization of LDSAC products.
• Enlargement of the geographical area (within and outside Australia) where evaporative air conditioning technology can be used.
• Reduction of peak energy demands during the cooling periods.
• Reduction of CO₂ emissions.
• Facilitation of the local production of a new range of air conditioning systems with potential worldwide applications.

The application of desiccant technology to provide a healthy indoor environment in an energy efficient manner is a technology that can be adopted by the building services engineer in the application of good building design. Desiccants can reduce and even eliminate reliance on refrigerants and contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions, thus reducing the negative impact of buildings. The market for energy efficient cooling systems is increasing rapidly because of the concerns about the effects of global warming, energy use and life cycle costs.

Calculations indicate that the electrical requirement for the peak design load system is 6kW and the daily electrical energy consumption is about 60kW.  Assuming an electricity tariff of approximately 10cents/kWh in Australia, the total annual cost would be A$80,000 and the total annual amount of electricity consumption for the whole office building is about $12,000. 

Economic and Social Benefits

Using solar energy for cooling purposes is an attractive idea with good prospects compared to conventional air conditioning systems. The replacement of compressor cooling systems by solar driven desiccant cooling systems could make an important contribution to environmental protection. Due to the combination of solar cooling and heating, solar collectors which are used only for heating purposes would become more economical. Studies had shown that it may be possible to reduce the regeneration air flow without a significant reduction in the dehumidification efficiency, enabling desiccant cooling systems to run with high COPs. In climates with high ambient-air absolute humidity, additional dehumidification devices are necessary.  This will assist Australia in achieving gas emission reduction policy in an effective manner and create a comfortable lifestyle for all.