Guiding Questions:

By Peter Yeh

1. How much energy does an air conditioner requires each day in average in China?
During summer, its approximately 12000W for each air-conditioner each day.
2. Whats the general structure of an air conditioner?
Room air conditioner has two forms: terminal packaging (PTAC) system. Single system, generally
a room air conditioner, sitting in the window or the hole in the wall, internal control. Indoor air
as the cooling fan blowing into the evaporator. In the external air heating as the second fan
blowing to the condenser. In this process, the heat from the room out, discharge to the
environment. Big houses or buildings may have several such units, allowing each room cooling
separately. PTAC system also known as split air conditioning system with or without pipe system.
Often use the PTAC system in the hotel has two separate units (terminal package), in the indoor
evaporation unit and condensing unit in the external, with tubing wall and connection. This
makes the system inside the footprint, let each room can be adjusted independently. The PTAC
system can provide heating in cold weather, the direct use of electricity, gas or other heating, or
by reversing the refrigerant flow heat transfer inside and absorb heat from the outside air,
converted into heat pump air conditioner. Although the room air conditioner provides maximum
flexibility, when used for cooling multi room, this is a time is usually more expensive than central
air conditioning.
3. What type of air conditioner needed the most energy?
Central air conditioning offers whole-house or large-commercial-space cooling, and often offers
moderate multi-zone temperature control capability by the addition of air-louver-control boxes,
thus it causes a lot of energy because it needs to change the temperature of the whole house,
and also it requires a high Walt engine.
4. How many electricity can a solar energy panel produce (each square meter) for an hour?
A solar panel with good quality can generate 90W of electricity per square meter every hour,
with the sun light at medium penetration power (from 20 to 32 degrees.)
The researchers point out, 2015 to 2020, all of the world through the solar energy to generate
electricity will be able to recover all the energy consumption of the past. At the same time, the
installation cost and material cost of solar energy will be more and more low, which will drive
the economic benefits of solar energy.
5. What kind of energy store can contain the most energy without taking a lot of space?
Storage Battery, the smallest size of it is 32

, it can store more than 1221W. Because this

kind of battery can charge and be charged at the same time, so it fits with my idea.
6. In what position in the room should the air conditioner be so it could operate most power?
As the science suggests, cold air has more weight than the normal or heated air as it freeze parts
of the air and larger the density. So the cold air would normally goes down. The position of it
depends on the structure of the room. That the position of it should has a ratio of 1, 1 and 3 to
the position of bed, place you work, and the position of door. 1,1 and 3 is just the ratio of the
distance.

Design Brief:
Im going to make an air condition system which only uses electricity generated by renewable energy for
houses on Google sketch up. The reason why I chose to make an air condition system is because it
usually causes a lot of energy when the weather is extremely hot. As the greenhouse effect is getting
worst among the development of human being, the climate becomes warmer and warmer, that in
developing, developed, even undeveloped countries, people spent a certain amount of money to
purchase air conditioning. It has become an efficient way of using worlds nonrenewable natural
resources, as the fossil fuels great amount of energy. If we can explore a kind of way to effectively
reduce the non-renewable costs on the area of air conditioning we might have a clear reduction on the
use of the non-renewable natural resources. Also the electricity uses in houses is always higher than the
ones in departments. The advantage of making this system in houses is because the usage of the surface
of the roof. That if we make a layer of solar energy panels and make them water proofed. They would
absorbs a lot of energy at the day time. Also, we dont need to worry about the problem of the lack of
energy, because people only uses air conditioning system when its really hot, and the causes of hotness
is the exposure of a great amount of sunlight, so when we need to use the air conditioning system, it
would provide enough energy for us, besides, we dont need the air conditioning to be operating for
whole day long, but the solar energy panels can generate energy whenever there is a certain amount of
the intensity of sunlight. When we are not using the air conditioners and the solar panels are still
working, we would need a energy storage to contain the electricity generate. We can put it in the
basement or a corner in the house; it depends on what the user like. The volume of the energy storage
is about 40

. This does not take a lot of space, and contains a certain amount of electricity. Also this
kind of system can give resolution to emergencies. When the electricity in your houses accidently
stopped, the energy storage can also give out some necessary use of electricity. Imagine when its really
hot at night and all the electronics in you houses is off. If the air-conditioning system still works you can
still make it over the night.
Design Specification:
1. There would be only one air conditioner in the system but it can actually operate more than one.
2. The wires linked between the energy storage, solar panels and the air-conditioner would be
hidden in the walls.
3. The solar panels would be on the roof of the house, there would be a layer of transparent water
proof layer on the top of the solar panels so it would not be damaged by the rain.
4. The energy storage would be able to contain the amount of electricity for 5 air-conditioners with
1200W to operate for 24 hours constantly.
5.














































Bibliography:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm
"HowStuffWorks "How Air Conditioners Work"" HowStuffWorks. N.p., Dec.-Jan. 2009. Web. 27 Apr.
2014.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-air-conditioning-system.htm
Cam, Shannon, and Lindsay D. "What Is an Air Conditioner System?" WiseGeek. Conjecture, 26 Apr.
2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning
"Air Conditioning." Wikipedia. N.p., Oct.-Nov. 2011. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.

http://housewares.about.com/od/coolingproducts/f/EERrating.htm
("What Is an Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER)?" About.com Housewares / Appliances. N.p., 13 July 2012.
Web. 27 Apr. 2014.)

http://energy.gov/oe/technology-development/energy-storage
("Energy.gov." Energy Storage. N.p., Feb.-Mar. 2010. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.)