Enovatek Energy – Hybrid Solar Air Conditioner
iFly Singapore is strategically located in Sentosa Island, a well know spot for both locals and tourists. iFly is a first of kind themed indoor skydiving facility that allows anyone the opportunity to skydive in a safe and realistic setting. In an effort to go green, iFly engaged Enovatek Energy to help them reduce their air-conditioning costs and lower their CO2 emissions, by installing a 4 x solar AC unit to cool their offices and server rooms. Enovatek Energy identified that the space being used comprised of certain heat loads from the servers and human traffic, therefore proposed to use 2 x 18000 Btu’s Solar AC in the Server Rooms and 2 x 18000 Btu units in the office areas. The Hybrid Solar Air Conditioner proposed, runs on DC power harvested from solar panels during the day. At night or when there is insufficient sunlight, the air conditioning system switches to conventional AC, the grid. On a cloudy day, the system still draws as much power possible from the sun’s irradiance. Being an intelligent system, the algorithm will always draw as much power possible from renewable sources first and then tap into conventional AC power. The solar air conditioning system operates without inverters, batteries or controllers. As this was a new project (no replacement of Air Conditioners), Enovatek Energy had a few key performance indicators:
- To Keep the room Cool
- To increase energy efficiency
- To tap as much solar as allowed to run the Air Conditioners
The decision for Enovatek Energy to use 2 x 18000 Split wall mount Solar AC’s was so that the spread of cool air would be unilaterally spread across the server rooms. As the office areas had high level of human traffic, Enovatek Energy installed 2 x 18000 split unit Solar AC’s to allowed the achievement of ambient temperatures with a low of 18 degrees. Enovatek Energy’s R32 Solar Air conditioners are approximately 15% more efficient when run on AC grid compared to big brand invertor Air conditioners as it uses more DC parts. 16 x 350W Serpahim Solar Panels were installed on the roof of ifly which has a clear sun path from morning to evening. Using a BCA approved energy monitoring device, Enovatek Energy collected data from the newly installed 2 HP or 18000 BTU Enovatek Energy Hybrid Solar Air Conditioner to see the amount energy being used and it’s costing. From the data collected it can be seen that the average running power of the abovementioned split air conditioning unit is between 1200 – 1400 watts. The Solar Hybrid Air Conditioning system managed to draw power from the sun for approximately 10 hours in a 24-hour period. In In AC mode, it is suggested that the air conditioner did not use more than 1400 watts and used lower power when the outdoor ambient temperature was cooler. In comparison of the usage from AC grid vs the usage from solar and the running cost on a day to day to day basis, it is shown that the average cost consumption and costs of a typical big brand inverter aircon would cost an average of $2,900 SGD (based on the same $0.015) per year. Whereas the usage of Enovatek Energy’s solar air conditioner units would allow iFly Singapore to have a savings of approximately $1,420 per years in running costs, thereby reducing iFly’s electricity consumption and CO2 emissions significantly of approximately 50% per annum.