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Revolutionising energy efficiency ClimateWell
REVOLUTIONISING ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ClimateWell® is a Swedish company that is set to make the biggest contribution yet to the reduction in global warming through its hyper-efficient and sustainable heat transfer solutions. Philip Yorke talked to Karl Bohman, the company’s business development director, about the major impact this unique and revolutionary technology will have on the world at large, as well as on our everyday lives.
ClimateWell® was founded in Sweden in 2001 by two visionaries: Goran Bolin and Ray Olsson. These remarkable entrepreneurs both shared the same revolutionary idea: a unique thermal heat pump that was highly efficient, economically sustainable and environmentally friendly. The outstanding success of this product soon attracted the support of major investors such as General Electric, as well as leading academics, thus further accelerating the company’s research programme and the advent of even more exciting innovative products to follow.
Dramatically reducing carbon emissions
Today ClimateWell® technology renders oil, electricity or gas totally unnecessary for indoor climate solutions, thereby making obsolete the need for expensive air conditioning powered by non-renewable energy sources.
ClimateWell’s energy efficient cooling and heating systems are designed to serve three core energy sectors: Water heaters and boilers; air-conditioning systems for trucks and passenger vehicles; and solar cooling and energy storage systems. The company’s advanced heat transfer systems run on solarpowered hot water rather than electricity in order to maximise energy efficiency. It was the company’s solar powered air-conditioning solutions and zero electricity heat pumps that led to the American industrial giant, General Electric, offering a $100,000 cash award to ClimateWell for further product development. This was with granted with a view to applying ClimateWell’s technology to a wide range of GE appliance businesses.
This new heat-transfer technology translates into a significant reduction of power consumption and carbon emissions. While
initially targeting operations like hospitals or commercial buildings, the company is working with GE to deploy this technology to additional markets that are already served by the global GE appliances division.
It is a fact that over 68 per cent of all energy consumed in the US is attributed to household energy consumption, and this is simply for heating and cooling buildings alone. Overall, a significant percentage of the world’s CO2 emissions can be traced to the need to heat buildings in cold climates and to cool buildings in hot climates. Therefore the opportunity to use renewable, sustainable energy sources can have a huge impact on the world’s total energy consumption and the environment that we share in the future.
Further proof of the scale of CO2 savings achieved by ClimateWell technology can be illustrated by the simple comparison between conventional cars with its technology, and today’s hybrid cars without it. For example, changing from a conventional car to a hybrid car will save in the region of 1 tonne of CO2 per year. Compare this with Climatewell® technology fitted to a conventional car and an average family can reduce their CO2 emissions by around 15 tonnes per year.
Bohman said, “Our mission is to develop optimised, energy-efficient components for the world’s major OEMs. We are currently working with a handful of large OEM customers, such as General Electric and Dometic. They set their requirements and we then develop energyefficient products that can be customised and integrated into their products. This is a process that we call ‘design-in’ component technology. Currently we are two years away from producing large commercial volumes of these components. These on going investments in R&D and pilot studies are co-funded by our dedicated OEM partners. We expect to be able to reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 1 billion tonnes per year, once full production levels are achieved by the year 2014. Today we have a significant patent portfolio and many of our patents herald revolutionary technology advances. These include a small, compact energy storage unit for residential use
which will transform the way we use energy in the world’s households of the future.
Bohman added, “Other ground-breaking innovations include nano-coated salts that allow for energy storage without the traditional problems of corrosion, clogging or swelling – an ideal solution for power-plant equipment companies and heating appliance companies as well as for the chemical industry and many others. A footnote to this is that until recently, solar thermal collectors only delivered heat when it was hot and they never worked at night. Today our sustainable solutions convert that heat and energy into air conditioning to make it work around the clock. This breakthrough has been achieved by utilising our unique, integrated energy storage system. Today ClimateWell is working tirelessly to make its energy-saving technology more widely available for the benefit of both consumers and the environment. The challenge ahead will be to raise awareness with consumers.”
Heat-driven solutions
Dramatic savings both in energy and CO2 emissions can be made with ClimateWell’s heat-driven solutions known as Verdacc. Heavy-duty vehicles such as trucks, buses and construction equipment use a surprisingly large amount of energy and CO2 in order to keep their cabin conditions sufficiently comfortable for work and rest. It is interesting to note that the major part of that energy is consumed when the vehicle is stationary, whenever the driver of the vehicle needs heating or cooling. Normally this is done by keeping the engine running and results in a large truck engine working to power one small air conditioner. This is now a thing of the past thanks to ClimateWell’s latest technology. With Verdacc, the desired heating or cooling can be obtained directly from the redundant engine heat or simply from the fuel on board the vehicle.
This technology from ClimateWell makes it possible to reduce fuel costs used for cabin comfort by up to 90 per cent, whilst at the same time significantly reducing the environmental impact. This does not just apply to savings on CO2 emissions, but also to the replacement of traditional refrigerants that contribute to high global warming levels.
The future for ClimateWell is assured, as is its positive contribution to the future well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. For further details of ClimateWell’s revolutionary sustainable energy solutions visit: www.climatewell.com n
