Air Conditioning

The meeting of air conditioning demand is not generally thought of as an application made to order for solar technologies. Why not? With the discovery of Freon™ in the early 20th century, compressor-driven systems became the standard for air conditioning throughout the developing world, especially in humid areas where evaporation systems were largely ineffective.

“Cheap” electricity allowed for the deployment of refrigeration-based systems on a massive scale, enabling the development and industrialization of many areas previously unsuited for dense populations. Heat pump systems, a variation on refrigeration designs, started to become popular as electricity demand and costs escalated.

In much of the world, however, scant and costly energy supplies or substandard infrastructures drove the precocious development of “alternative” energy technologies. Europe and Asia are currently leading the world in the development of advanced solar thermal components and they are aggressively seeking to expand the technology frontiers and also their capacity to provide the manufactured materials and trained manpower to meet anticipated global demand.

ESTTP anticipates a substantial inventory of beta test sites by 2020, and deployments comprising 10% of the district cooling market by 2030