Mexico. In order to minimize the energy costs that are increased by the use of mini splits during the summer, doctoral students from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), belonging to Tecsol, incubation cell of the educational campus, advance in a platform to generate air conditioning and refrigeration through solar thermal collectors whose technological basis is the optimization of the heat generator that is in the refrigeration equipment.
With this technology, students aim to improve the efficiency of solar energy in the cooling process, which works through absorption to increase the operating coefficient (COP) of the equipment and the entire system. This is achieved through the optimization of the heat exchanger (generator) found in the absorption cooling equipment.
"Analyzing all the cases, we see that there is an area of opportunity in solar-based refrigeration equipment. At the moment its level of efficiency is around 60% and what we want is to achieve efficiencies of 80%," said Juan Pablo Vargas, engineer and student of the Doctorate in Engineering Sciences (DCI) of ITESM.
This project is part of the renewable energy equipment currently demanded by the global industry. For Alejandro García Cuéllar, professor of the Research Chair in Solar Energy and Thermosciences, and advisor to this incubation cell "it is difficult to tell people to change their energy consumption habits when they do not have more options or there are no alternatives, so we are concerned about developing technologies that meet this demand while designing strategies that allow us to create sustainable environments".
Thus, the competitive advantage of the system focuses on the economic savings obtained by reducing the electrical energy consumption of conventional air conditioning and refrigeration equipment. "By ceasing to consume electrical energy, we decrease the peak demand produced by this equipment, especially in the hours when it is hotter. In addition, the consumption of fossil fuels that are used to generate electricity is reduced," added engineer Vargas.
