Application of thethermoelectricity and the photovoltaic energy to the air conditioning

 

J.G.Vián, D. Astrain, A. Melero, L.Aldave

 

Departmentof Mechanical Engineering.  UniversidadPública de Navarra, UPNa. Pamplona Spain

 

An air conditioning system for housing has beendesigned. It is based on the thermoelectricity technology and supplied withphotovoltaic solar panels. The equipment has a power of 1400W and consists of48 Peltier pellets, integrated in the roof of the room, with aluminium platesas heat exchangers.

For the design of the cold thermoelectric device, aiterative calculus modelling has been implemented, where analiticalexpressions, semi-empirical formulation and computational fluid dynamics arecombined.

This air conditioning system presents severaladvantages with respect to the vapour compressor ones, such as: moreecological, because it does not need any fluid refrigerants, lower level ofnoise and vibrations, minimum maintenance because of the reduction of mobileparts, higher thermal comfort since it does not  need  interiorfan. One more advantage is that in summer time, when solar radiation is higher,the photovoltaic panels electric energy obtained is maximum and that coincideswith the highest refrigeration demand of the air conditioning system forhousing.