Page 20 - Climate Control News July 2019

Heat Exchangers
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AUSTRALIA IS TAKING PART IN THE GLOBAL COOLING PRIZE, A GROUNDBREAKING COMPETITION DESIGNED TO INCENTIVIZE DEVELOPMENT OF A RESIDENTIAL COOLING SOLUTION THAT WILL HAVE AT LEAST FIVE TIMES LESS CLIMATE IMPACT THAN TODAY’S STANDARD RAC UNITS.
Competing for the ultimate
The prototype cooler showing the heat exchanger and Evaporative Cooler pad which has been extensively tested
on hot summers days.
THIS TECHNOLOGY COULD pre- vent up to 100 gigatons (GT) of CO2- equivalent emissions by 2050, and put the world on a pathway to mitigate up to 0.5˚C of global warming by 2100, all while enhancing living standards for people in developing countries around the globe.
By 2050, 4.5 billion RAC units will be in use globally compared to 1.2 billion today. Steps need to be taken today to offset the climate impact.
Applications for the competition, which features more than $US3 million in prize money, closed on June 30, 2019.
The challenge is an initiative of the US- based Rocky Mountain Research Insti- tute which released a report showing that market failures have resulted in little incentive for the air conditioning indus- try to innovate.
“Several market factors have con- tributed to the sluggish pace of innova- tion in the air-conditioning (AC) indus- try, with the key factor being customer focus on low first cost as opposed to life-cycle cost. This has driven the AC industry to focus on economies of
scale, resulting in a highly consolidated indus- try,” the report said.
It is the reason why the Global Cooling Prize was created and it immediately caught the eye of Australian experts.
One Aussie taking part in the competition is engineer and chief executive of Rotary Heat Ex- changers, Bill Ellul.
“There was a lot of interest in the prize basi- cally because it’s been well understood that air conditioning is causing a lot of climate-change issues,” Ellul said.
He hopes other Australian companies and in- novators have taken part as well.
“With low efficiency and cheap air condition- ing units becoming more prevalent worldwide, it's vital that a solution is found,” he said.
“The technology hasn’t changed that much but this is an opportunity to find the technology that will drag us out of this quagmire.
“We all know about the problems of a 1.5 and 2-degree rise, half a degree is very significant – that’s 25 per cent from air conditioning alone , that's why the need to solve this problem is so important.”
Ellul will be submitting his new evaporative cooler.
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cooling prize