Turbine-Powered Air Conditioners?

I have yet to see a home built wind unit that puts out enough wattage to drive even the smallest a/c unit....

here are a few sites you need to check out....

www.scoraigwind.com
www.otherpower.com
www.windstuffnow.com

www.thebackshed.com/Windmill

pay attention to what these fine folks have to say about power output from home built units.

Thanks Charlie, I shall check out the links you have sent. - Onkar.

Mumbai is hardly the place for a wind turbine capable of running a 2 ton airconditioner. And then even for open country there is no windmill so far to power an airconditioner. Technically if a windmill can pump water from a well why not compress a refrigerant ? But refrigerant compressors are designed to work on electrical power and most wind turbines are designed to generate electricity.

It's a good question.

Off the shelf windmills of about 2500mm diameter can supply about 300W of power, for about 1/4 of the time, so to run a commercial sized A/C unit, you'd need a HUGE wind-turbine.

It might be better to spend the same money on passive solar things like, tinting, shades, natural ventilation, roof painting or screening etc.

Good luck.

like this ?

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/224452084/300W_Vertical_Wind_Turbine.html

Or this

http://www.energymatters.com.au/ampair-pacific12volt-300watt-marine-wind-turbine-p-662.html

Considering the limited amount of potential energy available from a windmill we must optimize the efficiency. Having a windmill convert rotating energy into electrical energy, and then sending the current to an electric motor to convert back to rotating energy seems very wasteful.

Would it not be more simple and efficient to harness the rotating energy and directly spin an AC compressor? A vertical-shaft windmill design would make this a simple task. Automobiles all have belt-driven AC compressors so should be easy to source.

Instead of using battery storage for the excessive electrical energy, and an (inefficient) inverter to convert DC power back to AC, you could freeze ice with excess capacity and use the melting effect during peak demand.

I have been considering purchasing a conventional gasoline generator to operate my AC during hurricane outages. I'm instead looking into a compressor design that can be powered directly by the gas engine, thus optimizing the efficiency.

Thanks Delmar, Your suggestion is very good. I shall consider possibilities in this direction. Onkar.

Would it not be more simple and efficient to harness the rotating energy and directly spin an AC compressor? A vertical-shaft windmill design would make this a simple task. Automobiles all have belt-driven AC compressors so should be easy to source.

Instead of using battery storage for the excessive electrical energy, and an (inefficient) inverter to convert DC power back to AC, you could freeze ice with excess capacity and use the melting effect during peak demand.

I con cur, but for storage I would just store extra compressed refrigerant. For an outside small operation Ammonia will do fine (cheap and high Btu efficiency). But anything of size a failure of an Ammonia system can be deadly unless possible failure is designed to be handled in some safe way.

Having a windmill convert rotating energy into electrical energy, and then sending the current to an electric motor to convert back to rotating energy seems very wasteful.

Would it not be more simple and efficient to harness the rotating energy and directly spin an AC compressor?

That was exactly my logic back in the mid 1970's in Central Mexico. I had an agricultural consulting client who wanted to air condition his living room. We connected a belt driven piston type displacement compressor to the windmill, fed the compressed refrigerant (CO2) to an underground storage tank, brought the compressed gas to the expansion coil via a squirrel cage blower drive connected to the fan that blew the air across the coil into the room, and had a totally mechanical air conditioner with no electrical input whatever. The system was started/stopped by the expansion valve. As long as the windmill turned, the compressor stored the energy in the refrigerant reservoir. As a side benefit, the wife collected the water that dripped off the expansion coil to water her houseplants. The system was still working on my last visit back in 2002.

Hi Onkar, I query why one would think about windpower in Mumbai, I did not think it was a windy place. Wind no ,lots of sun yes. Perhaps you can clarify your operating environment. If you have lots of sun and passive measures as mentioned are not enough consider absorbtion refrigeration (as used in gas and kerosine fridges). Your heat source could be the sun via parabolic reflectors. This would give you the option of storing the cooling energy in brine or ice when not required. Let us know how you progress. Duncan

Hello Duncan, You are giving me fantastic ideas. Honestly I do not know much about the technique of storing cooling energy in brine using the heat from the sun. I will appreciate very much if you could please elaborate and guide me by suggesting a model and the equipment required for such a unit. Thanks. Onkar

Of course it is possible, how much can you afford to spend?

A reasonable amount, my friend.

Here in southren Ontario canada, one meter square of swoop yeilds about 100 watts average yearly output, at 80 meters, but only 40 watts per m2 at 30 meters hub hight. The small turbines don't have gear boxes so their generators put out about 10% of what they're rated for (with most designs anyway), instead of 33% of generators with gearboxes. In winter though they generate 2 or 3 times more energy, here where the leaves fall off the tree's anyways. Solar generates 3 times more in the summer, (here in ontario) the grid will pay about 3 times as much for this solar electricity, because it's aviable on peak times, when people are useing their air conditioners it stresses the grid, so I think it's much better to go with solar thermal.