A water tank that is used with a solar air conditioning system and provides a supply of cold water for in-dwellings radiators of the system. In one embodiment, the tank application can begin at 32 F degrees and drop down to many degrees colder, such as, but not limited to, minus 100 F degrees. In one non-limiting embodiment, the tank can hold 2000 gallons of water.

The present invention relates to an electrically driven, vapour compression heat pump device. The heat pump device comprises a variable speed or variable capacity refrigerant compressor, a compression stage having a first condenser, an expansion stage having a first evaporator, a DC to AC variable speed compressor drive inverter unit, a grid AC to DC power supply unit and an electronic control unit. The control unit varies the thermal capacity, and the power consumed by the device, in response to an input from at least one of: a renewable electricity generation input, a premises net consumption monitor, a utility grid frequency monitor, and a third party control input.

A simple, cost effective system and method for flexibly managing heat pump source fluid is disclosed. The source fluid flow-manager significantly enhances heat pump efficiency by selectively coupling it to renewable energy resources via geothermal, solar, and ambient air thermal exchanges. The sophisticated interconnection of these thermal exchanges also reduces installation costs. A preferred embodiment of the source fluid flow-manager consists of three T-port valves, two pumps and a plurality of connection points, and operates in at least twelve modes. These modes selectively interconnect source fluid flow between fluid utilizing units, such as heat pumps, and a variety of thermal exchange and/or storage units, such as hot or cold underground thermal storage-and-exchange regions, dry coolers and solar thermal collectors. The valves and pumps are controlled by a programmed controller, guided by input from flow meters and thermometers. Operational modes are matched to thermal need, and to system and environmental status.

A heat recovery system includes a compressor, a solar panel, and a first heat exchanger and a second heat exchanger in fluid connection to form a closed circuit. The compressor is configured to facilitate fluid movement in the fluid circuit between the solar panel, the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger. The solar panel includes a plurality of solar cells connected in parallel, and each solar cell includes a plurality of metal tubes for fluid to pass through. A temperature sensor is mounted within each of the solar cells and configured to measure temperature inside the respective solar cell. Each solar cell is connected to the circuit via a respective pressure valve, and the status of the pressure valve is configured to depend on the measurement of the temperature sensor in the respective solar cell.

Embodiments of the present invention reduce the amount of energy required to operate air-conditioners and refrigerators by providing a vapor-compression system that harnesses a low- or no-cost source of energy, namely, heat, and uses the harnessed heat to power a new kind of compressor, called a burst compressor and a new kind of pump, called a vapor pump. The heat-driven burst compressor pressurizes the refrigerant, while also providing push and pull vapor refrigerant to the vapor pump. The vapor pump, actuated by the high pressure refrigerant in gaseous form provided by the burst compressor, is configured to pump a combination of gaseous, vaporous and liquid refrigerant out of the receiver tank and inject that low pressure refrigerant mix into the burst compressor, where it is heated to change the state of the refrigerant to a heated, pressurized gas. Then the heated, pressurized gas is released in bursts into the other components of the vapor compression cycle. Thus, embodiments of the present invention use heat to provide cold. Because of this arrangement, vapor-compression systems constructed and arranged to operate according to embodiments of the present invention are able to provide air-conditioning and/or refrigeration much more efficiently and with much less expense than traditional vapor compression systems for air-conditioning and refrigeration.

The present invention provides a photovoltic and thermal (PVT) heat pump system capable of achieving day-night time-shared combined cooling, heating and power using solar radiation and sky cold radiation. The system utilizes a photovoltaic power generation technology and a photovoltic and thermal (PVT heat pump technology simultaneously, both of which are relatively independent and promoted to each other in the function. The main energy sources of the system are solar radiation energy and sky long-wave cold radiation energy, and the energy is respectively transformed into electric energy, thermal energy and cold energy via a photovoltic and thermal (PVT) photoelectric-evaporation/condensation module at different times in different working modes. The system of the present invention integrates power generation. heating, refrigeration and many other functions; and the equipment has simple composition, high utilization rate and remarkable energy-saving effect, thereby improving the energy utilization rate to the maximum extent, and achieving a multi-purpose machine and day-night time-shared combined cooling, heat and power.

The solar augmented chilled-water cooling system comprises a refrigeration cycle, a cooling tower, an air handling unit (AHU), a supplemental cycle and a solar energy harvesting unit. The supplemental cycle is in fluid communication with the refrigeration cycle, which is in fluid communication with the cooling tower, which in turn is in fluid communication with the supplemental cycle. The cooling tower cools a water stream by evaporation. The water stream from the cooling tower is passed to the supplemental cycle for further cooling using energy from the solar energy harvesting unit. The water stream is then passed to a condenser of the refrigeration cycle for its efficient operation at proper temperature. The water stream is then retuned back to the cooling tower to be re-cooled. In the refrigeration cycle, an evaporator uses operation of the associated condenser for providing cooling effect through the AHU.

Reliability of devices such as lighting fixtures, is improved by replacing an inductor based voltage inverter to power the device with a switching constant current PWM controller. Avoiding use of an inductor and matching capacitor is made possible by a high voltage power input that exceeds the voltage requirements of the device. The power is pulse width modulated with a current feedback to control duty cycle, and thus average device current.

One embodiment of LMHPs, as shown in FIG. 10, is a multi-function, grid-interactive heat pump system by alternately charging/discharging thermal energy storage (40) as its heat pump source. The charging process maintains thermal stability to the source. The thermal stability of the source ensures high system performance, and this energy-storage-as-source and its effective use provide system operational versatility. Which takes the forms of availing the system-operation of dual heat sources (10 and 20) for heating application, demand-response management (48), grid-integrated water heating (46) as well as grid-integrated space heating and cooling (48). By transcending the limitations of individual, stand-alone, solar units and heat pump units, the grid-interactive heat pump system performs heating function better than all existing heat pump methods. LMHP principle is applicable to single-function, grid-interactive heat pump operation with similar benefits of high performance and demand-response management. Other embodiments are described and shown.

A hybrid shellfish cooling system employs DC and AC cooling units using both solar power and AC electrical supply as energy sources. As temperature control and uniform temperature distribution in the cooling system are critical factors in reducing vibrio growth on raw oysters and reducing energy consumption, the system is equipped with a divider that optimizes airflow through the cooling system interior cabinet to achieve uniform temperature distribution in six individual internal compartments. Tests indicated that an average of 130 min. cooling was required to reach the suggested oyster temperatures of 7.2 C. and meet the cooling time requirement (i.e., 10 h or less). Airflow is further optimized via fan location and airflow direction, whereby configuration of a circulation fan on a lower part of the 12-volt DC section with an air supply from the 12-volt DC section to the 110-volt AC section achieves relatively uniform temperature distribution.