Problem:

With global warming, the search is on to developed more natural air conditioning systems.

Solution:

Air-conditioning “water battery”

During 2019, a team lead by Dennis Frost, Manager of Energy and Infrastructure at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Queensland, Australia in collaboration with energy and utility services company Veolia, began to trial a three-storey air-conditioning “water battery”.

The thermal energy storage system will use a large storage tank of water that is cooled using a “complex thermal process” by the output of 6,000 solar PV panels spread across campus rooftops and car park structures on USC’s Sippy Downs Campus. The cooling and storage system is paired with 2.1 MW of on-site solar PV, which the University said is enough to cool 4.5 megaliters of water.

The water battery will help “slash 40% of grid energy use” at Sippy Downs. The cooled water will be stored and then used for air conditioning, currently the single biggest use of energy at the site is the start of an ambitious rollout of clean-energy developments that is planned to include renewably produced hydrogen and make USC carbon-neutral by 2025.

Discover Solution 326: Plastic-free aisles in supermarkets

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