anyone had a good look at the electrical HCH a/c system?

[dberns]

I'm thinking long term... in wanting to reduce my home electrical use and switch things around. I'm down to ... 117, yes 117 kw-hr of utility power in the last month's reading for my NYC apartment.

I'm going to bump up quite a bit this month because I'll be using fans, and sometimes, air conditioning.

Anyway... the Honda unit looks interesting as a self-standing item which I could run off alternate power supplies - either from wall current or, as i'm dreaming on a bit, a battery backed solar panel system [a].

Has anyone had a chance to see what sort of power it needs and how much cooling it provdes? I've glanced around the various web sites and can't come up with anything definitve. Thanks.

[a] I can grab about 1/4 kw-hr/day of solar power if I get the right panels and install them correctly. Maybe even 1/2 kw-hr/day. That would be a useful amount. Yes, I know that from a purely financial standpoint I'm off my meds, but no one's ever accused me of sanity.

[Rick]

Wow, that's very low electric use.

The 06 Civic's AC is a "dual scroll" compressor. It can be driven off of the the engine's belt while the car is moving, or if conditions are right it has a motor on the other end of the compressor housing which is fed by a separate 3 phase inverter (yes there are two sets of orange wires comming from the back of the car). I'm not sure what kind of cooling the electric side can make, but if the AZ is set to full bore (which is often here) it will keep the engine running. I don't have any data on it, but you might be better off with a regular heat pump because the Civic's compressor would be very expensive, plus you'd need their inverter to run it and a 156 volt DC supply and figure out how to trick it in to working on top of that.

If your going for maximum energy efficiency the AC on your house may already have good efficiency unless it's an older type unit. You might consider going for a grid tie solar or wind system if either will work good in your location.

[Dougie]

One advantage of a purely electric A/C pump is that there are no shafts needing seals that leak and waste power... That's why refrigerators can last 30 years and still have their working fluid intact.