In Pursuit of Energy Efficiency, Better Physics Can Trump Better Electronics

Focus:

When the author, a veteran of the power semiconductor industry, needed to replace refrigerant in his home air conditioning system, changing from the now-hard-to-find R-22 to the newer and better performing R-438-A, he turned a home project into an insightful experiment. In upgrading his system, he measured the energy usage and cooling performance of the system before and after the change. In this article, the author describes this project/experiment, step by step and in entertaining style. As Kevin discusses, both the energy consumption and cooling of the system improved with installation of the new refrigerant—to a degree that might be difficult to achieve by adding electronics such as a variable frequency drive or microprocessor control to the system.

What you’ll learn:

• How to understand the relative efficiency benefit of using improved refrigerant versus adding power electronics in residential air conditioning systems

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Author & Publication:

Kevin Parmenter, Contributor, How2Power Today, Sep 16 2013

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