{"id":35108,"date":"2019-11-21T07:11:20","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T20:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=35108"},"modified":"2019-11-21T07:11:20","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T20:41:20","slug":"solar-cooling-trial-mb1301","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/solar-cooling-trial-mb1301\/","title":{"rendered":"New Cooling Technology Trial Powered By Solar Panels"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Glaciem<\/p>\n

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is supporting a demonstration of technology powered by renewables aiming to slash commercial cooling costs.<\/p>\n

ARENA announced yesterday it was providing $2 million in funding to Glaciem Cooling Technologies<\/a> to demonstrate the benefits of thermal energy storage integrated with renewables for Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVAC&R) applications.<\/p>\n

Many Australian businesses are investing in commercial solar<\/a> power to gain the upper hand on rising energy costs associated with HVAC&R as it makes good financial sense to do so. However, conventional battery storage remains out of reach given the costs and payback involved.<\/p>\n

But energy storage isn’t just about conventional batteries. Energy can also be stored as heat or cold. A thermal battery project powered by solar panels we’ve previously mentioned is at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. 5,800 solar panels provide energy to chill water stored in a 4.5 megalitre water tank that is used for air conditioning. It’s expected USC’s solar + “water battery”<\/a> project will reduce the campus\u2019s grid electricity use by 36 percent.<\/p>\n

Air Conditioning, Cold Storage, Process Cooling Powered By Solar<\/h2>\n

The Glaciem system goes beyond air conditioning applications, also offering cold storage and process cooling functionality. Developed by Glaciem and the University of South Australia (UniSA), the system involves several elements.<\/p>\n

One is a low-cost thermal energy storage technology using Phase Change Materials (PCM) designed to store and release latent energy at critical temperatures for refrigeration (0\u00b0c, -6\u00b0c, -11\u00b0c, -27\u00b0c). Another is a refrigeration system using carbon dioxide rather than synthetic refrigerants. As well as being less environmentally damaging, Glaciem says using CO2 offers substantial efficiency benefits over conventional refrigeration systems.<\/p>\n

Glaciem’s technology also involves an advanced control and forecasting system for optimising operation not only based on weather forecasts, but also electricity price and customer demand forecasts.<\/p>\n

Three sites will be involved in the $4.95 million demonstration project<\/p>\n