On hot days, air conditioning can make you sigh “Ahh” in relief. The electric bill at the end of the month, however, might cause you to shout, "Ahh!" in shock and horror instead. While some A/C units on the market are more energy-efficient than others, air conditioning during the summer is rough on our wallets. But there’s relief in sight, in the form of Desiccant-Enhanced eVaporative (DEVap) air conditioners, which use 50 to 90 percent less energy than the most efficient units currently available.
Conventional air conditioners use refrigerants such as chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochloroflurocarbons (HCFS), which are dangerous to the atmosphere. Instead of refrigerants, the DEVap uses a combination of desiccants and evaporative coolers to create cool and dry air. In evaporative coolers, water flows over a mesh, and then a fan blows air through the wet mesh, creating cool but humid air. But in many places, humidity is part of the problem in the summer, and that’s where desiccants come in. You’ve seen desiccants before in the form of those little packets in shoeboxes, new electronic equipment and certain foods, to keep them dry. Desiccants in the DEVap air conditioner dry the air, so what you feel is cool and dry air.
While traditional air conditioners use a lot of electricity, the DEVap can be powered by natural gas or solar energy and use very little electricity. In addition to being more eco-friendly, the DEVap air conditioner could save you money on your electric bill—money that you could, perhaps, put towards a summer getaway?
Don’t rush out to the stores just yet to pick up a DEVap air conditioner. Its inventor, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is still working on perfecting its design. Once the NREL has figured out how to make the device smaller, simpler, and more cost effective, it plans on licensing the technology to manufacturers, who will in turn bring the DEVap air conditioner to consumers.
It might be a few years until the DEVap air conditioner is available in stores, but it definitely seems like something worth getting excited about. More eco-friendly, energy-efficient and cost-effective? Neither you nor your wallet nor the environment can argue with that.
Source: BecauseAction.com
