A small clean-technology startup is aiming to rid the world of the growing climatic impact of air conditioning with a new approach that it claims can reduce peak energy demand by more than 80% and greenhouse gas emissions by 85%.

Parkland, Florida-based Blue Frontier LLC’s technology, which is currently testing its products at national labs and in field trials, uses a combination of a concentrated salt solution and proprietary heat exchange technology to remove moisture from the air and cool it. The company hopes to make a major dent in one of the world’s largest consumers of electric power.

Energy hog

Air conditioning is an environmental bad boy on a couple of fronts. It accounts for nearly 20% of energy use in buildings, according to the International Energy Agency. As the world grows warmer, demand is expected to more than triple by 2050, “consuming as much electricity as all of China and India today,” the agency wrote.

The timing of air conditioning’s electricity use is also unfortunate; peak demand typically comes between 3 and 9 p.m.. That’s when the supply of solar energy is low and capacity must come from fossil fuel-burning sources.

“It tends to draw a lot of power during very inconvenient periods,” said Daniel Betts, Blue Frontier’s founder and chief executive. “The electrical grid is sized for the peak electrical load. In the U.S., air conditioning makes up about 36% of maximum peak load but on the hottest days it can be more than 70%.”

Most air conditioners also use hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants that are between 1,000 and 3,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Altogether, the World Economic Forum estimates that direct and indirect emissions from room air conditioners alone could contribute to an increase in global temperatures of as much as half a degree centigrade by 2100.

“We tackle every single one of the problems of existing air conditioning technology,” Betts said. “We make the consumption of energy consistent with renewable energy generation, we increase efficiency, and don’t use harmful refrigerants.”

Trading refrigerants for salt

Blue Frontier’s technology is an alternative to refrigerant-based approaches that have been used for nearly a century. Conventional air conditioning systems rely on changing the pressure of the refrigerant to make it cold. Blue Frontier instead employs a concentrated salt water solution to remove humidity from the air and uses the extracted water as a coolant, Betts explained.

“Salt solutions are very hygroscopic,” he said. “They want to be in a solution with water, meaning they absorb water from the atmosphere.”

The patented two-stage system evaporates a portion of the water from the salt solution, thereby increasing its concentration. Like a squeezed-out sponge, the concentrated salt solution can then absorb and store water from the air. About half of the work air conditioners do is dehumidification, so the first stage in the process automatically makes the air more comfortable. The second stage uses an indirect evaporative cooling process that reduces the air temperature without increasing its humidity.

Since the process dehumidifies first and then cools, Blue Frontier’s air conditioner can control indoor air temperature and humidity independently of each other, which conventional air conditioners can’t. That allows for a wider range of comfort conditions that can be continually adapted to the needs of the building and its occupants, Betts said.

Grid-friendly

The company claims its technology is three times more efficient than a conventional system, doesn’t use ozone-destroying refrigerants and operates intelligently when renewable energy is plentiful in the grid. During the periods of highest heat in the late afternoon and evening it runs on low-cost storage that provides about six to eight hours of operation with minimal electricity consumption, thus removing the load from the electrical grid.

Blue Frontier is targeting the market for five-ton commercial air conditioning units, which are the most sold air conditioners in U.S. commercial buildings. Betts estimated the potential market to be $800 billion, as the system not only displaces existing air conditioning technology but also substantially reduces the cost to implement energy storage and renewable energy infrastructure.

It plans to release its first units in 2023 but won’t sell them to customers. Rather it will own and operate the units and sell the cool air as a service.

“We foresee that at volume, the manufacturing cost of our unit is comparable to a conventional air conditioning unit,” he said. “The savings are so big compared to a conventional unit that we can leverage those savings to create an as-a-service model.”

To date, the company has raised more than $5 million in nondilutive funding and $1.8 million in venture funding and plans to seek a $10 million round next year. In October, it was named the startup with the most potential to tackle the climate crisis by the VERGE 21 Accelerate Awards. The company was also listed as one of the Most Fundable Companies by Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School.

“The International Energy Agency has declared that air conditioning is the biggest blind spot in our fight against climate change,” Betts said. “As temperatures increase globally, we can make air conditioning part of the solution rather than one of the biggest parts of the problem.”

Photo: Pixabay