alt.energy.renewable

"Neon John" ha scritto nel messaggio
news:kuauq39s7862op834oinp0phabvrmqr4vi@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:50:17 GMT, "Alex Chiani"
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Bruce Richmond" ha scritto nel messaggio
>>news:88fbafb7-5ad6-4adc-90e8-22c3ba153933@p69g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
>>> Just wondering if anyone has ever heard of one. Seems like a
>>> reasonable idea. Works just like an absorption fridge except put the
>>> cool outside and the hot inside. All the waste heat would go toward
>>> heating the house, as would the heat from the coil. The cooling
>>> circuit could cool the air outside in mild climates or the ground in
>>> cold climates, making it a geothermal heat pump.
>>>
>>> Bruce
>>
>>I'm a great fan of absorption heat pump systems, too. A Swedish company is
>>developing a such machine :
>
> How can you be a fan of something that doesn't exist in any meaningful way
> in the
> civilian market?


It's not true, an Italian company (Robur) has developed and commercialized a
gas fired absorption heat pump;
http://www.robur.it/us/pag_prodotto.jsp?idp=88&idl=2&steps=0
the only difference is the "feeding" is natural gas, not more efficient (and
economic) low temperature waste heat, it should be very interesting to
produce a such heat pump consuming only low temp heat like solar thermal or
cogeneration

> Absorption ACs are commonly used where waste heat of the appropriate
> quality is
> available. Petrochemical industries, for example.
>
> Conventional absorption ACs achieve a COP of less than 1. That is, they
> use more
> energy to operate than they transport. Contrast that to a conventional AC
> that has a
> COP of from 3 to 5.


There is a huge difference : conventional refrigerators use electricity
which is not a primary energy, absorption ones use primary energy sources
like natural gas, if not low temperature waste heat. It takes at least 3
unit of primary energy to produce one unit of electricity, so absorption
heat pumps are so far more efficient than compression refrigerators

>>http://www.climatewell.com/index.php
>>http://www.climatewell.com/index.php?pageId=34
>
> Sorry, but gotta call a bullshit foul on this one, at least based on what
> they
> present. It smells like the gentle Scandinavian version of a scam.


Frankly, I coudn't say it's a seriuos thing or not

> A few clues. First, no meaningful technical or performance information at
> all. If
> the thing works then present ASHRAE-standard performance data. Second,
> though they
> claim to have patented this system, I can find no evidence of it,
> searching for the
> company name, "triple-phase absorption" or "absorption air conditioning".
> Third,
> what little technical information there is, is presented in a deceptive
> manner. Here,
> for instance,
>
> http://www.climatewell.com/index.php?pageId=34
>
> Near the bottom of the page. They've made up something they call
> "electrical COP"
> which has no practical meaning. They claim it to represent the cooling
> output
> divided by the electrical input. Only problem is, electricity does not
> participate
> in the refrigeration process. If they drove the circulation pump using a
> Sterling
> engine powered by the solar heat then the "electrical COP" would be
> infinity.
> bullshit!


Even an absorption heat pump/refrigerator use some electricity to feed some
pumps or circuit. Given the fact it doesn't consume primary energy heat, no
surprise at all they define an electrical COP as ratio between heating or
cooling production/electricity consumed. That' s all, ordinary thermal COP
definition is less important in this technology