WO2025037330A1

WO2025037330A1 - System for comprehensive room weather control and refrigeration

Info

Publication number: WO2025037330A1
Application number: PCT/IN2024/051410
Authority: WO
Inventors: Pradeep Varma
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2023-08-16
Filing date: 2024-07-30
Publication date: 2025-02-20
Anticipated expiration: 2026-02-16

Abstract

We teach a novel, refrigeration system, or climate control system comprising the following attachments to a bounded heat reservoir that improves the temperature control capability of the reservoir, for cooling, and also heating the reservoir: low power fans and gravity-driven water spraying for outside cooling, a U duct that assists the outside cooling above besides siphoning out heat from within the reservoir, and a low-pressure water extensible tank embedded adjacently to increase the heat capacity of the doubly-cooled reservoir for a thermal storage benefit that applies when power supply from alternate energy like wind and solar is low.

Description

SYSTEM FOR COMPREHENSIVE ROOM WEATHER CONTROL AND REFRIGERATION

5 Field of the Invention:

The field of the invention is temperature and humidity control in a building and refrigerator.

Background of the Invention:

Nature does not suffer the Carnot limit on efficiency. There are no Carnot processes found naturally. To break the Carnot limit, we then have to follow nature directly - Crack open the closed Carnot System into an open system wherein the hot and cold reservoirs pass not just heat from one to the other, but also matter. This is the subject of a recent filing of

15 ours, whose implementation experience leads us to this novel, comprehensive disclosure on bounded, cold reservoir cooling within a surrounding, unbounded hot reservoir. Examples of such systems are building/room coolers, refrigerators, and freezers. Such systems can be nested, for example, a refrigerator in a cooled room, or a person in a cooled room, where the person’s body is a bounded hot reservoir, though not food in a

20 freezer, since the food, although bounded, soon loses its starting temperature and ceases to be a separate-temperature reservoir in the freezer. With the emergence of alternative energy like solar and wind power, we direct our attention to optimal applicability of such energy in our work, noting that such energy is erratic in nature and hence available only in spurts and not continuously, for example, the difference in solar at day versus night. We begin with enumerating comprehensively how the heat reservoir can be cooled where prior works are lacking which the system disclosed here then addresses.

Since the reservoir is bounded, it can be cooled both from the inside and the outside. The boundary rules out convection cooling since matter movement across the boundary wall is

30 not possible in general (even human skin is not an exception as sweat crosses the skin through specific openings/pores in the skin for the purpose only). Since the hot reservoir surrounds, radiation cooling is also ruled out as the net radiation is inwards as opposed to outwards. Conduction is the only means for cooling across the boundary from the outside and prior art to this effect exists in terrace gardens on rooftops where evaporation from the garden soil cools the rooms below by conduction across the roof slab, and the skin when sweat evaporates. Missing in this solution is applicability beyond rooftops and animals, and we generalize this method in a manner that additionally addresses radiation heating from the outside by blocking it effectively in our disclosure below. For the purpose of this disclosure, the notion of a bounded reservoir does not insist on an airtight or perfectly closed boundary. Few small pores are allowed, for example, as in the animal skin for sweat, or beneath door or window without airtight linings etc. For a fridge, near air-tight is supposed, except that its door opens ever so often that the supposition is limited in this manner.

Cooling inside a room/building by controlling its moisture content by inputting moist air using a cooler is well known in prior art. To keep the moisture down, coolers run with open doors and window, so that the moist air moves rapidly into the building and then outside. This method however fails to take into account the benefit of convection for room cooling, that hot air moves up, while cool air moves down naturally. This deficiency is overcome in our disclosure here with or without the benefit of a concurrent use of a heat pump in this space.

The bursty nature of alternative energy demands alternative storage methods contextualized to their peculiar use. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work, for example big batteries and electrical storage, since the economic and environmental cost is prohibitive. Thermal storage tank for thermal uses have been discussed in prior art, in this work we address a missing component in prior art, which is a decentralized tank embedded in reservoir walls applicable to the peculiar heating/cooling generated by alternative energy sources during peak production for spreading the energy use to low production periods also. The tank thus increases the heat capacity of the reservoir, using high heat capacity matter like water, to economically and environmentally inexpensively, expand the use of alternative energy. Vestment of thermal energy locally in increased heat capacity is the sole method used, circulation of heat from a remote/central storage using circulatory flow is avoided and the entire system works naturally using convection alone. Energy expense in explicitly pumping is thus avoided, except for flushing the system to keep the water fresh.

Finally, a large but not exclusive motivator for this work is the cost of energy (better cooling and weather performance is the other motivator). We improve prior methods of running cooling methods like fans, coolers to improve their energy efficiency.

Shown in Figure 3, a visit to the hospital in the inventor’s B. Tech, in Electrical Engineering, alma mater IIT Delhi in March 2023 showed the deployment of ACs and coolers in the same space, along with exhaust fans. Apparently this was done during COVID, for fresh air circulation, bypassing the ACs. Regardless, the equipment as shown cannot be used for controlled indoor air cooling and humidification of a relatively closed air-conditioned space. The space is not closed at all. A visit the same day, to the Delhi Gymkhana Club showed the Kashmir Lounge Restaurant running exhaust fan(s) in parallel with AC(s), which again make this an open space. We point these out as prior arts, and neither is close to either this disclosure of ours or our prior work, that transpired before this visit.

Buffnstaff s primary interest in smart home and office space is in designing low energy footprint, low maintenance buildings and systems with high sustainability (even at the micro level, including: [1] P. Varma, B. S. Panwar, and K. N. Ramganesh, "Cutting Metastability Using Aperture Transformation", IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 53, No. 9, pp. 1200-1204, September 2004. [2] P. Varma, B. S. Panwar, A. Chakraborty, and D. Kapoor, "A MOS Approach to CMOS DET Flip-Flop Design", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems - 1: Fundamental Theory and Applications, Vol. 49, No. 7, pp. 1013- 1016, July '02. [3] P. Varma, B. S. Panwar, Arjun Singh, and S. Sriram, "Metastability Reduction by Aperture Transformation", IEE Electronics Letters, Vol. 36, No. 6, pp 501- 503, March 16, 2000.). The building discussed here is intended to be applied to Buffnstaff-designed high-performance, low power software hosted on ordinary laptops comprising a sensitive information datacenter that cannot be outsourced due to information sensitivity. A climate control part of the system is described here. Summary of the Invention:

Accordingly, a system comprising the following attachments to a bounded heat reservoir is provided that improves the temperature control capability of the reservoir bidirectionally, for both cooling or heating the reservoir.

1. Low power fans on the reservoir outside along with gravity-driven water spraying of the outside for low power, humidity-free cooling of the reservoir inside where the shining water-cleaned windows additionally reflect incoming radiation for cooling.

2. A U duct that assists the outside cooling above besides siphoning out heat from within the reservoir, such relative heat being useful for the evaporation cooling carried out.

3. A low-pressure water tank embedded in the above wall of the reservoir to increase the heat capacity of the doubly-cooled wall for a thermal storage benefit, including during winter, when cooling is switched off and the tank can store heated water for increasing the warm hearth effect in the reservoir.

The specific novel apparatus, arrangement, and functioning that realize the above benefits is detailed in the claims section below.

Brief Description of the Accompanying Drawings:

These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:

Figure 1. is a schematic diagram of the temperature and humidity control system arranged around an outer wall of a heat reservoir. Figure 2 shows a latest electricity bill for our implementation testbed called Adbhut House wherein the disclosed system is partially implemented at present.

Figure 3 shows nearest prior arts we could find, per chance, at IIT Delhi and the Gymkhana Club, New Delhi.

Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the drawings are illustrated for simplicity and may not have been necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the drawings may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of aspects of the present invention. Furthermore, the one or more elements may have been represented in the drawings by conventional symbols, and the drawings may show only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the drawings with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having benefit of the description herein.

Detailed Description of the Invention:

It should be noted that the steps of a method may be providing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention and so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having benefit of the description herein.

All methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context. The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g. “such as”) provided with respect to certain embodiments herein is intended merely to better illuminate the invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of the invention.

It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that many more modifications besides those already described are possible without departing from the inventive concepts herein. Moreover, in interpreting the specification, all terms should be interpreted in the broadest possible manner consistent with the context. In particular, the terms “comprises” and “comprising” should be interpreted as referring to elements, components, or steps in a non-exclusive manner, indicating that the referenced elements, components, or steps may be present, or utilized, or combined with other elements, components, or steps that are not expressly referenced. Where the specification refers to at least one of something selected from the group consisting of A, B, C ... . and N, the text should be interpreted as requiring only one element from the group, not A plus N, or B plus N, etc.

Figure 1 shows the schema of our offering, for cooling a single volume, namely a room or a fridge. Heating may also be carried out according to this schema upon need in winter when the cooling is OFF. The schema is organized around the boundary wall of a finite heat reservoir comprising the volume. The wall is shown in the middle, as 2 blank rectangles, with a thin bold line showing a window in the wall which is optional. The outside of the volume is shown on the left of this wall and the inside on the right. From the cooling perspective, the outside on the left represents a higher temperature heat reservoir, not required to be isothermal, and the right represents a finite, non-isothermal heat reservoir at a cooler temperature than the outside reservoir. The reservoirs are likely of near uniform temperature each, but this is not a strict supposition and there are likely temperature gradients in the cooler or cold reservoir, the room/fridge inside that we are discussing.

Now consider the upside-down, black, U-shaped duct at the top. With the system turned off and the non air-tight closure of the not-yet-cold reservoir, the duct reflects the typical temperature gradient that exists with height variation in any tall room. The top has the highest temperature and down the arms the temperature goes down. The gradients along the arms are the same at the same height or that in this regard, the duct temperatures are symmetric, if the inside and the outside of the room have the same temperature. Suppose the room is allowed to heat up compared to the outside as is common in an un-cooled tall room. Then for minor temperature difference between the inside and the outside, the duct top will contain the hottest air which wouldn’t climb down due to convection and the duct will be dysfunctional in cooling the room by convection as a high flat duct or window commonly does for a room, by providing an exit path for the hottest air. However, the static gradient will exist, and it is only that it needs some active assistance in being of use for cooling the room.

Now consider this same room with minor pressurization of the inside. The inside pressure will find release through the duct which will cause the air to be pushed out, including the hottest air at the top. If the pressurization is small, the air movement will be slow, but this very slow motion will ensure the temperature gradients in the room are undisturbed and it is generally that only the hottest air in the room will find release through the duct.

A major advantage of the U duct is that its height can be made adjustable and increased for the typical short room that exists these days in modern homes. The duct makes any short room tall. The sloping roof of the room shown in the figure assists in the creation of a temperature gradient that funnels the hot air throughout the room towards the duct. And then the minor pressurization makes the movement possible. The duct is best of a large cross-section, to keep the air motion slow and enabling quasi-static air movement throughout the room. The sloping, funneling roof construction may be done as an inexpensive false ceiling of minor, varying thickness.

Quasi-static air movement ensures that there is no turbulence that disturbs the temperature gradient or causes frictional losses. This thermodynamic process attribute is highly valued in theoretical discussion, such as the Carnot engines, and continues to be of high value in the practical system we describe here.

As shown in Figure 1, by the downward-arrow-tipped scribbled line, the outside of the room wall has a sheet of water wetting, cleaning, and shining the wall with water. This water comes from an overhead tank, not shown, so that the watering itself does not consume energy actively, the sole driver being the potential energy of the water in the tank. The tank can be filled in the day, when solar is strong, to be consumed for free at night, when there is no alternative energy generation. The same applies for wind power analogously.

The wet outside then cools the wall by evaporation. The two stars shown depict a fan apiece, a multitude, two or more being preferred for low power quasi-static wind that we describe later. The duct adds its exit wind to this mix. The wind from the duct and the fans are shown by dotted lines in the figure. In steady state, when the room is relatively cool, the duct’s wind is cooler than the air from the outside, so its mixing and application to the wall has a further cooling effect. Just as there is a temperature gradient in the room, there is also a humidity gradient, moisture being heavier tending to stay low. So the duct air is the hotter and drier air from the room, cool enough to add benefit to the entire evaporation cooling. The fans help keep the duct air moving along the wall and cooling it. A big benefit of this entire outside cooling is that it is applicable through all seasons, hot and dry to muggy/humid. The air moisture this cooling generates falls entirely outside the room and hence never becomes bothersome to the users inside. Evaporation always helps, so its value, from the non-disturbing outside, is there even in humid weather.

Now observe that the arrangement described thus far works to cool the room even when no air-conditioning is present in the room. The big star on the inside denotes a cooler, which pressurizes the room on the inside by pumping in evaporation-cooled, moist air from the outside into the room. The pressure can be large with a large power cooler, which again can be reduced to quasi-static, low levels, by the method we describe for fans below. In the non-AC, cooler alone system, the cooling on the outside keeps its moisture outside assisting the experience of the users, especially if the cooler’s moisture contribution is kept down by appropriate thickness and material of the watering screens and their water flow.

Next consider an air conditioner in the room, denoted by the oval with horizontal lines on the inside. This is assisted by the pressurizing cooler’s added moisture, as discussed in a recent disclosure of ours. The net effect is just added coolness to the entire room along with a reduction in humidity, which fits perfectly with the discussion presented above.

This system works to cool very effectively, with all components being synergistic. The energy requirement for this overall-lowered-cost of cooling can be easily met during the day when solar is at peak, or whenever wind/alternative power is available. During the night or off-peak power, working with desirable low battery sizes, the cost is best minimized further by shutting down energy-expensive components like the air conditioner. The following observation makes it possible to do so. Users of air conditioning, or fireplaces, are aware that if these systems are run at high power, then the effect of cooling or heating lingers for along time in the room after the system has been shut down. We call this vestment, of heat or chill, in the heat capacity of the room. If such vestment is enhanced, when the power generation is high, then the stored heat or coolness can be used in low power times to keep the room temperature pleasant. For storing coolness in particular, the storage tank can be placed next to the low-power outside cooled wall, whose cooling works continuously, to keep the storage effective for a long time. Water with its high heat capacity becomes the content of the storage tank and if there is not sufficient space along the outside wall to park such a water tank, then further tanks fan be placed elsewhere in the room, connected by flexible piping for keeping the room cooled/heated. Such tanks are shown in Figure 1 as rounded-corner boxes, filled with water-denoting ripples.

The storage tank cannot be strongly insulated, as it will then not release its stored thermal content when needed. If it is un-insulated, then the content will not get stored or will not survive long enough to be of much value. For cooling, the insulation along the outside wall should not rule out the benefit of the outside wall cooling, which can be particularly strong past midnight, when the outsides are cool already. The outside cooling is less during the day, but then the solar generation is at peak. Medium insulation, is best and can be tuned according to the material of choice used in the decor of the house. Low power fans can help spread the temperature effect of the storage tanks by gentle air circulation.

Storing heat in the tank(s) arises during winter, when the outside cooling system is switched off. The dry wall itself then provides the adequate outside insulation to the tanks.

There are multiple ways of generating the heat or coolness to be stored in the tanks. A preferred way for cooling is to leverage the moisture-improved air conditioner here directly, as shown in Figure 1, using a chill interceptor for the air conditioner. The interceptor may be a metal grill just outside the air conditioner’s cold air exit, e.g. on its wind-control flaps, or maybe using metallic flaps directly as the grill. The cooled metal can then pass this on to connecting water tubes, that feed the tank. The intercept is shown as a half oval below the air conditioner oval in the figure. Water may flow through the grill itself as metallic piping. Another option is to intercept the coolant piping coming to the air-conditioner, surrounding it with water to collect some cooling to pass on to the tank. Any or a combination of such methods can cause inexpensive cooling of the tanks’ water during the peak solar hours. The air conditioner can be run at high power or low temperature setting to maximize storage as well as use in the room.

A totally different approach is to use a dedicated water cooler to cool the storage tank water when the sun is bright. This water cooler may leverage the moisture in the surrounding just as the air conditioner does. Water cooling in this case can go as far as freezing the water, which then allows minimization of the tank size since energy released later is CAT, where the larger temperature difference AT for ice allows a reduction in C or (heat) capacity of the tank. Furthermore the latent heat of fusion adds to the energy storage in this case.

An easy enhancement for room cooling is to not throw the AC’s condensation water away using the drain, but to instead send it to the storage tanks, optionally with further cooling.

For heating, we can have an intercept for the heat source, shown at the bottom of the figure as an oval with vertical lines inside it. The grill design can be identical to the first one disclosed above. Another design, for a fireplace specifically, is to have the grill as the removable stand on which the firewood rests while burning. Instead of a fireplace, a gas geyser or water heater may be used to heat the tank water. The key observation in these two options is that the heat fuel here comes directly from the Sun, as plant matter, or historically solar-based organic matter, which does not pay the Carnot cost in its use. An electrical water heater can also be used during the day using solar, but firewood and gas, or solar origin, can be used round the clock for water heating, which reduces their tanks’ insulation need. Electricity from the grid, may be privy to the Carnot cost, if it is created in legacy thermal plants or thermo-nuclear plants. A big benefit for a fireplace is that the approach here expands its warm hearth effect using the tanks immediately when the fireplace is in use, and the effect can linger for a long time, for a much more effective fireplace than its size would suggest. The heating engendered by any of the above heating methods can be very vigorous. Turbulence, steam, boiling may easily be generated next to the source, which will exit along the piping to the tank(s). This turbulence will ensure that the heated water/steam moves along the pipes regardless of convection alignment or not. Hence in Figure 1 , the path from the heat intercept deliberately goes down and up in a zig zag manner to emphasize convection independence. The path by contrast for the cold intercept is downwards only, along convection propriety. Tank(s) extending the main tank embedded in the outer wall with flexible piping may be moved around for convection alignment as needed. The turbulence/steam post arrival in tanks will likely subside in the larger body of water. Regardless, the tank system is a low pressure tank system, open at the top above the cold intercept as shown in the figure with a float (shown as a dark circle), to control the water level. The pressure head of the tank is thus at most of the room height. An overflow is shown above the float level as safety. Filling the tanks occurs at the bottom, with a non-return valve fitted at the input that fills the tank in a one-way manner (indicated by the arrow direction). A bidirectional valve allows emptying the tank to the source the water comes from. The valves allow opening and closing. They are shown in the closed state using a line which crosses both pipes. Except for the non-return valve path, which has an arrow, all the other paths are bidirectional, and hence shown without arrows.

The open-top tank system ensures that the system can handle freezing or boiling in the extreme cases safely, allowing the expanded ice or steam to exit without damage if the situation so arises. All the piping, storage is insulated, in medium manner, as discussed previously.

Minimizing battery size as described above may not necessarily be followed to its extreme limit. The user may wish to stop at a somewhat larger size, if economic and environmental concerns are met, for example, a larger capacity in roughly the same packaging cost as is commonly the case in many commercial batteries.

Pleasant weather, windy, moist, cool, may be easily imported in the system described above, by opening windows, or using the coolers which can easily be run without watering to pull in the outside air strongly. Windows become ineffective if the outside air is still, so the cooler pulling can really add value, as also its moisturizing the air.

For a room without an outside wall, enclosed totally in a building, any wall that allows outside cooling, e.g. adjoining a bathroom, may be used. Further, the wetting of the outside wall may be optional in this case and the cooler simply ducted in.

All the fans in the system described here, including the reverse exhaust fans used in coolers, may be run in series to reduce their power and speed without energy loss. As is well known in theory, the power of a device with impedence Z, comprising all resistive, inductive, and capacitive components is given by (V²/Z)cos cp, where cos cp is the power factor. When two identical such devices are connected in series, each gets equal voltage of V/2, so the power of the two in series is ((V/2)²/Z) cos cp + ((V/2)²/Z) cos cp = (V²/2Z) cos (p. Similarly, for N such devices, the power is (V²/NZ) cos cp. So the fans’ total power goes down by N and each individual fan has its power reduced by a factor of N². For a moment of inertia I of a fan, rotating at angular velocity co, the rotational kinetic energy is Ico². When power goes down by a factor of N² for a fan, the expectation would be that its kinetic energy also goes down by N², or in other words, its angular velocity by N, but this is not how it happens. The operative concept is power, not energy, and the terminal rotational velocity of the fan is decided not by its fixed kinetic velocity at that juncture, but by the air drag at that velocity which cancels out the supplied power. By Stokes Law, the drag force is proportional to an object’s velocity through the air and power is the product of this force and velocity so the rotational speed of the fan goes down by N at steady state, taking a longer time to arrive at this steady state speed, than when supplied the full power which then bypasses this speed. At a lower speed, the fan does not create wasteful turbulence. The choice of N is dictated by how gentle a speed is sought. N is integral, so it does not allow a continuous spectrum of speeds. The avoidance of turbulence creates an efficiency bonus per unit of power supplied to a series of fans than one fan by itself. The result is quiet, and non-intrusive (not windy) and allows the opportunity to circulate air without disturbing the temperature gradients in a room much, or in the outside wall cooling, especially if the fans are somewhat away from the U duct. For the coolers, the impact on quietness is highly notable, coolers otherwise being considered obnoxiously loud. This method of fan rotation control is however hardly used in practice. Maybe it is the desire to have a continuous spectrum of speeds, what is sold generally comprises resistive regulators, that reduce a fan’s voltage by placing a rheostat in series. The perpetual cost of this is the wasted heat in the unnecessary resistance.

All the fans in this teaching best run in series of 2 or more fans identical fans. Coolers of multiple rooms may run in series to benefit each room separately. We leave the AC fans to the AC designers, though clearly multiple ACs can benefit in all their fans using series combinations for control.

For ease of maintenance, the tank system here is best implemented in a detachable manner, with flexible piping to be able to move the tanks around, clean and repair or replace them. Minor civil work only is required in the entire system, comprising the U- duct, false ceiling, and tank embedding in the wall by thinning the wall out for a movable tank placement.

Our prior work of AC/cooler combination has been substantially implemented. Its results show in our latest reduced electricity bill shown in Figure 2. This and the last 2 bills summarized within this bill cover a total of 180 days from February 11 , 2023 to August 10, 2023 with a total grid expense of 2062.95 + 965.24 + 463.35 KWH, which is trivial. The government most subsidized billing is for a daily expense of 5 KWH/day or less, which comes to 900 KWH for 180 days. The teaching in this work makes this low target possible to attempt, bringing even a luxury house within the purview of seeking subsidy, which would challenge the most hardened of demagogues from resorting to subsidies as a way to divide and rule.

The system as taught so far is a somewhat open system with the duct throwing out relatively cool air (compared to the outside), the cooler pumping in air and moisture from the outside, and the AC drain throwing away cold condensation water to the outside unless stored in a tank. This can be closed substantially as follows. Break the outside cooling into an inner and outer cooling using say an extra glass pane outside the wall. The cooling of this pane from the outside occurs with wetting and fans as described before, sans the duct. The duct cools the wall inside this pane using condensation water from the AC drain. The duct now becomes a closed system, with a light exhaust fan pumping the duct and after cooling the wall the resulting efflux is fed back to the room as the cooler input. In effect, the cooler now stands replaced with the duct, and wall cooling system, where cold condensation water does the moisturization of the air. Ideally, the entire condensation water is consumed by the evaporation caused by the duct air, so the moisturized duct air thereafter re-enters the room for its moisture to be condensed again and the cycle repeats endlessly with the same water in this closed system being condensed, vapourized, condensed and so on with no addition or loss of water. This ideal is of course un-realizable directly, but it can be talked about as an ideal, for now.

Suppose the humidity of the room is fixed. So the condensation rate filling the AC drain is equal to the moisture outgo rate at the U duct’s entry subtracted from the moisture incoming rate from wall cooling system fed by the duct. This system can be realized with additional water being supplied to the wall cooling system by another closed water system that supplies extra water for wall cooling and the leftover water then is recycled by this additional closed water system. Since the cooler is gone, and assuming airtight room there is no water or air loss in this totally closed system. After the system has reached steady state, the temperature of the additional water will also converge to the condensation water temperature, assuming proper insulation. Suppose the outside temperature is Ti and the room temperature is T2. Then for the AC being a Carnot Heat Pump, the Coefficient of Performance is T CTi - T2) = Q2/(QI - Q2), where Q2 is the heat outgo from the room and Qi is the heat delivered to the outside in time interval X, all via the use of the AC, which with proper insulation, we can assume as being the sole means of sending heat from the room to the outside. For a condensation rate R, in time X, and Latent Heat of V aporization of water L, RXL amount of heat is transferred by Q2 at least. The use of moisture ensures this minimum size of Q2 and as Q2 scales up, so does Qi to keep the relation with temperatures above intact. The coefficient of performance is high if Ti - T2 is small. By ensuring a large Q2 for a low Ti - T2, the system ensures that the room cools fast (Q2 per unit time or RL at least, is the sole arbiter of T2 drop rate), with least work done by the compressor. The moist cool wind circulation within the room and its wall cooling system ensures that this wind cools the room, collecting its heat and its delivery out then as Q2. In dry conditions, the AC temperature setting for T_s would have to be lowered, to get a similar effect, with a lower coefficient of performance or more compressor work. In a nutshell, since the higher Carnot Coefficient of Performance using smaller Ti- T2 is used, the cooling cracks the Carnot barrier of a larger Ti- T2 that would otherwise be there.

This analysis is corroborated by the empirical observations that in rainy system, ACs and fridges perform extremely well. AC temperature setting at a high value become practical and pleasant in rains unlike in dry heat. We have also observed such behaviour in our partial implementation of cooler/AC system disclosed earlier that also applies to the present, where the cost of the cooler/AC combination has been noted at even well within twice the cost of the cooler alone which is unheard of. Specifically, 3 coolers ran over 3 rooms in a series combination, with 1/3 cost of these coolers amortized to each room. For the one room under observation, a 2-tonne split AC also ran in that room at 29 C on an August night, the system performing very quietly and well. The cooler cost contrasted with this combination cost is 600 W, which represents running the noisy cooler at full power, alone by itself in the room.

The efficacy of using thermal storage tanks for temperature control in lean power times is corroborated easily by the prevalence of roadside ice vendors during summer whose ice slab survive the full-day scorching heat of Delhi, India, covered by nothing more than a few jute bags. The ask of insulation and storage duration from the thermal tanks in our system is hardly more than this.

The teaching to coolers from our present work is that they can be designed for outside cooling as disclosed herein, without the difficulty of excess humidity on the inside. The teaching to cooler and fans is to regulate power smartly without energy loss for quietness and luxurious/non-intrusive/silent cooling. For coolers, it is best to use an overhead tank for wetting screens, as opposed to the chore of tank and screen cleaning when running with a local pump over relatively stagnant water. Water reclamation downstream can be done in many ways including rain-water harvesting, which is an all-round catcher for all non-sewer water.

The Limit of Solar is the energy flux coming from the Sun multiplied by the area of the building receiving the flux. The stronger the flux, the more the heating that needs to be taken care of. The entire building can be shaded by solar panels to receive the energy with whatever efficiency, so the cooling now reduces to the problem of surviving the effect of neighbourhood heating including air and water, by the strong solar, while leveraging whatever can be generated from the received flux by the solar panels for both the day and night. As panel efficiency goes up over time, the problem will become more and more tractable, with the heating coming primarily the dry hot wind from the sides. A multitude of answers are possible, including plantation on the side and terrace gardens besides panels and the teaching herein is well-suited to changes in weather such as low solar during cloudy season, when weather control can leverage the ambience outside cheaply without much energy.

For the relatively open system with cooler described in Figure 1, a Carnot performance analysis similar to the closed system above, with the condensation rate being equal to the incoming moisture rate from the cooler minus the exiting moisture rate at the duct for a fixed humidity room can be carried out. The conclusions in this case are similar to the closed system, getting a substantial boost from the evaporation-cooled or otherwise air coming in from pleasant weather outside, e.g. at night, with a low temperature to cool a hot room quicker and inexpensively with an AC assist (and sometimes even without).

Application to Refrigeration

The application to refrigeration, freezers is clearcut - during peak time of alternative energy, generate ice and store it in the tank. Then run without almost any power during off peak times on the stored ice. So for solar, the ice generation would be within the day and consumption at night. The ice need not be perfect, slurry or icy water would suffice. Indeeed, for packing, 4 degree water is the densest and hence better than ice, though it loses out on the latent heat of fusion.

Cooling from the outside makes a lot of sense as it reduces the heat coming in through the insulating walls.

The relatively closed system we described above with Carnot efficiency analysis is exactly how one should implement a refrigerator or freezer. A freezer-at-the-bottom refrigerator, with the duct rising to the top and outside cooling enclosed in cold storage tanks would be a direct implementation. The additional water supply for ensuring matched evaporation and condensation rates may have to be tuned for the purpose, which is a straight feedback loop for the process (increase supply, if condensation is leading, decrease, if condensation is lagging).

The load on a fridge at night is low, since people are mostly asleep, resulting in low door openings, which are pricey (coldness loss). Assuming to the contrary even, energy plan for a fridge can work with an estimate of door openings, planning enough cold water/ice storage to make up for that. In extreme cases, the fridge can cost more, which grid backup supply can make up for, even if the batteries cannot. Amortized over the year, the system can run largely over minimal batteries.

Fundamentally, there is hardly anything in the modern house that requires electricity at night, except for lights and a few fans. With light-emitting-diodes, LED, having become prevalent the former expense stands trivialized and the latter, few in number, and fridges etc., benefit from our teaching. The direct implication of all this is that near minimal size batteries suffice for running the modern household at night/low power time, taking away the major technical/environmental/economic roadblock in widespread, solar/wind/al ternative power deployment.

Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have been described above with regard to specific embodiments. However, the benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any component(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential feature.

While specific language has been used to describe the disclosure, any limitations arising on account of the same are not intended. As would be apparent to a person in the art, various working modifications may be made to the process in order to implement the inventive concept as taught herein.

Claims

AIM:

1. A bounded heat reservoir’s temperature and humidity control system comprising a wall of the reservoir boundary, and one or more of: a. A cooling subsystem of the wall from the outside, b. An embedded tank subsystem in the wall for storing energy as hot or cold water for temperature control on the inside, with fixed or extensible water capacity, c. A U-shaped duct subsystem at the top of the reservoir for pumping out relatively hot and dry air by collected by convection from inside the reservoir that additionally cools the reservoir wall from the outside.

2. The cooling subsystem of the system in claim 1, comprised of one or more low power components including one or more low power fans, and zero power piping of water from an overhead tank.

3. The bounded heat reservoir according to claim 1 comprises a room or a refrigerator, either being fixed to a location, or not.

4. The system of claim 1, where the outside cooling lowers the local outside temperature and hence improves the Carnot coefficient of performance, where cooling-related moisture only increases the heat convection capacity of the air for additional performance.

5. A system for cooling outside a bounded heat reservoir using moisture where the outside cooling lowers the local outside temperature and hence improves the Carnot coefficient of performance, where cooling-related moisture only increases the heat convection capacity of the air for additional performance.

6. The system of claim 1 , where a tank is shaped like furniture for convenient use.