Researchers in India are hard at work developing a new kind of air conditioning unit. According to the Washington Post, if successful, the new units will be able to cool, remove moisture from the air in increasingly hotter and more humid environments, and use less energy.
As the Earth continues to warm, it will also become more humid because warmer air holds more moisture. Air conditioning technology was first developed over 100 years ago, and the basic technology hasn't changed much and is not equipped to handle these conditions.
While air conditioners are common in much of the world, in some places, they're actually quite rare — including in developed areas that can get rather hot, such as India.
But that's expected to change in the near future. According to a 2018 report from the International Energy Agency, the number of air conditioners in use around the world is expected to triple by 2050. As the Post reported, India, wider Southeast Asia, and Latin America alone have "billions of would-be users eager to install their first unit," and that's potentially billions of new AC units releasing more carbon pollution into the atmosphere.
Cooling already accounts for nearly 4% of annual planet-warming pollution, and that number would be greatly exacerbated if all of those new units lacked the technology being developed with this project.
The researchers are looking to revamp how air conditioners are seen and built. They are looking to develop AC units that are used to remove humidity from the air as much as they are for cooling.
The project began in 2018 with a global contest, the Global Cooling Prize, launched by RMI, a U.S.-based clean energy think tank, along with a global coalition. Participants were challenged to design AC units that would contribute less to the warming of the planet than current AC units and to also try to make them affordable.
Two prototypes were chosen as the winners: one from Chinese air-conditioning manufacturer, Gree, and one from Japanese manufacturer, Daikin.
Unlike current AC units, the prototypes can sense how much humidity is in the air and adjust accordingly, so they're not always operating at full capacity when running. One of the prototypes also has two coils rather than just the typical one in traditional air conditioners. This allows it to gradually reach the desired cooling and dehumidifying setting rather than immediately running at full speed.
According to tests, the prototypes were 75% more efficient than off-the-shelf models. On top of that, they use a new kind of refrigerant, one that's much less harmful to the environment if there's a leak. Refrigerants used today can be hundreds or thousands of times more potent as pollutants than carbon dioxide.
Nihar Shah of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who served on the prize's technical review committee, said, "It's not just going to magically happen." He added that air conditioners designed specifically for removing humidity are critical for the fight against the overheating of the planet, calling them "absolutely one of the most key things that we can do."
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