Saving 50% on air conditioning in Phoenix is fun – part 2

It is fun to annoy your neighbors with your power bills when you are saving 50% on your air conditioning. Find out for yourself. Transform your tract house into an energy saver.

The first step, discussed in part 1, installs double/bubble, foil-foil on the rafters in your attic.

The second step is easier. Install Evaporation Aided Air Conditioning. EvAAC is like an automated swamp cooler that surrounds an existing air-conditioner compressor (that big noisy thing outside your house). A mist is sprayed over filter pads to cool the air entering the compressor.

The science behind EvAAC is simple. Air conditioners are designed around SEER, Season Energy Efficiency Rating. SEER testing is done at 95 degrees outside, 75 degrees inside. The hotter it gets, the less efficient air conditioners become. By pre-cooling the air entering the air conditioner, the air conditioner is more efficient.

Air conditioning is the biggest energy challenge in Arizona. It requires 30 billion kilowatts of electricity each year just to cool the homes. That’s the energy equivalent to 1.8 million barrels of oil. Replacing that amount of energy with clean power would require 20,000 wind turbans costing $10 billion or 3,000,000 home solar systems costing of $135 billion. EvAAC, theoretically, could save 30% of the energy for a cost of $600 million.

The video explains a great deal. What it doesn’t address is the ‘human’ element. Any pre-cooler used in Phoenix must use filters to minimize calcium buildup on the compressor fins. The filters will also catch Phoenix’s famous dust. If the filters are not cleaned periodically, they will restrict air flow and decrease efficiency. Cleaning the EvAAC filter pads may be easy, but if the homeowner doesn’t inspect them and clean them, it won’t work. And the filter pads will need to be replaced every season or two because of the calcium buildup that can not be effectively cleaned.

It’s like changing the air filters in a house. Most people know it saves money, but they still don’t do it as often as they should.

Let’s face it. Human behavior is the problem with all conservation. Dick Cheney may have been right when he said we couldn’t ‘conserve’ our way out of the energy crisis. But that doesn’t mean that cost-effective conservation isn’t a major part of the solution. I wonder what Dick Cheney, or for that matter, Al Gore, would do if they lived outside of Phoenix and reduced their air conditioning by 50%?

This video is of EvAAC I.  EvAAC II is in final testing.