What’s the best way to prove portable evaporative coolers are built to the highest possible energy conserving standards? How about the fact that a mobile evaporative cooling appliance consumes less than 5-litres of water per hour? This feature ensures sustainable environmental control. It’s a hallmark trait, one that’s designed to minimise running costs and save natural resources. That all sounds wonderful, but what exactly is sustainability all about?
Demystifying the Sustainability Debate
Put simply, this is a balancing act that we all take part in every time we use our planetary resources. The turning on of an air conditioner represents an example of the balancing act gone wrong. Lots of energy is eaten up when an AC unit is activated, but the returns don’t reflect that usage pattern. Air conditioners are not energy efficient. On the other hand, when an evaporative cooler swings into action, the water held in the appliance’s reservoir is slow to vaporize. That means the energy output and energy input figures are balanced. In conclusion, sustainability issues target the conservation of our resources, and what planetary resource is more valuable than the energy entering our cooling appliances?
Designing Energy Conservation Products
Again, this issue ties into countless devices. Even a non-powered product is part of the sustainability question because energy has been used to produce the parts that form the merchandise. A humble orange, laying in a fruit bowl, is part of this field of study. After all, resources have been expended during the harvesting cycle and the transportation of that fruit. Meanwhile, back at the evaporative cooler, we can build this equipment so that it consumes less electricity and water. In order to make this appliance more energy efficient, we first look at the electrical pump and the fan. Low energy designs use perfectly installed magnetic windings and laminated poles to reduce hysteresis loss. Next, the spongy water pads are subjected to a battery of tests. The goal is to shape the media so that it captures more water. The saturated media, shaped perhaps as a honeycomb, now releases the water into the warm air as a tiny cloud of droplets.
The sustainability question contains many complex variables. However, the dynamics of the situation can be viewed as a seesawing mechanism. That seesaw topples when air conditioners accept the burden of a hot room. As for the evaporative cooler, it maintains an energy efficient cooling envelope at all times. It effectively channels output energy through key equipment parts, such as electrically advanced motors and geometrically sophisticated water pads, thus assuring an inbuilt sustainable cooling feature.