The devastating prognosis of the conference on the environment that was held in Paris at the beginning of February illustrated once again how important it is to come up with new solutions for the power supply of the future as quickly as possible. Many energy consuming applications, such as air conditioning, place an immense strain on the power grids and produce excessively high CO2 emissions.
On the other hand, cooling systems contribute considerably towards raising the quality of life in southern countries. It is, thus, highly unlikely that their numbers will decrease in the years to come. For this reason, environmentally-friendly and energy saving approaches, such as solar cooling, are needed to operate them.
Using evacuated tube collectors made out of high-quality glass, the energy required to run air conditioning units can be obtained independently on a permanent basis from the sun. The basic idea behind solar cooling is to use the originator of the high demand for cooling - the sun itself - for cooling. The advantage is that the demand for energy to operate the air conditioning devices and the supply of power from the sun achieve their peak at the same time. Furthermore, no sophisticated or expensive methods of storing energy are needed.
The tube collectors that are used convert solar radiation into heat and supply this to a thermally-driven refrigeration device. The collectors themselves are manufactured by SCHOTT Rohrglas in Mitterteich. They consist entirely of high-quality borosilicate glass and are extremely efficient, even if incident solar radiation is minimal.
"With this application, we have expanded our range of solar tube collectors quite considerably," explains Lars Waldmann, responsible for Public Relations at SCHOTT Solar, and adds: "In the future, we will see combined systems that convert sunlight into heat in the winter and generate cool ambient air in the summer." In this way, every single household will be able to take action against the impending climatic catastrophe.
SCHOTT Solar GmbH
INTERSOLAR
Freiburg, Germany
June 21 – 23, 2007
Hall F4, Booth 2.09
Press Conference
June 22, 2007
11:00-12:00 a.m.
INTERSOLAR, Room K11