Solar Powered Air Conditioning

Solar powered air conditioning has been a long time coming. Conventional air conditioners use a tremendous amount of power to run, and now you can use photovoltaic solar panels to run them. First you need to determine how much power your AC uses (if you still have the box it came in, it should tell you on the side or punch the unit number into google) and then convert that to the size of the solar panels needed to power it. You'll need space on your roof for the solar cells, or if you put them on your lawn you can attach them to a solar tracker that follows the sun all day.

There are also innovative new kinds that don't use any coolants. These tend to be very large and expensive and good for office buildings, but in every type they have one strong thing in common - big drop in wattage.

Passive solar cooling methods include a solar attic fan that cools your house by removing the heat from your attic. This is much cheaper than getting solar panels, but if you get the panels you can run other things not just your AC. Active solar cooling uses an attic heat exchanger can take that attic heat and heat your pool at the same time.

The Audubon Center at Debs Park in Los Angeles has fascinating new green building that has it's own air conditioning and water heating, and is entirely off grid. Definatly worth reading about.

A fun DIY project to cool your house only takes your fan, some bendable copper tubing and a small fish tank pump - follow the Geek's step by steps!

Retrun from Solar Powered Air Conditioning page to Alternative Energy Geek home page.