Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

Solar cooling, an alternative to conventional air conditioning, is being touted as the latest renewable technology for Jamaica.

Marketed locally by Eco-Tec based in Bluefields, Westmoreland, the company claims that the technology can refund its costs within six to seven years through electricity savings.

According to Mikael Oerbekke, Eco-Tec's founder, the technology is most applicable in the hotel industry where, he said, air conditioning accounts for 60 per cent of electricity bills.

Mr. Oerbekke also cited the recent hospital energy audit programme where Eco-Tec audited 23 hospitals and found that air conditioning contributed up to 49 per cent of the cost of light bills.

"The great thing about it is that first of all we can guarantee that we can replace 80 per cent of the fuel or electricity needed to cool ... This is an appropriate solution everywhere you need a lot of hot water or a lot of cooling," he said.

Built by Austrian firm SOLID the units can be purchased with export loans from Austrian commercial banks, he added.

Megawatt savings

Mr. Oerbekke said that Eco-Tec was trying to develop 15 projects in which the company had identified potential annual savings totalling over 20,000 megawatt hours.

This Eco-Tec calculated could save US$5.5 for customers while cutting US$2.3 million from the national oil import bill which will this year exceed US$1.5 billion for the first time.

The Ministry of Industry, Tech-nology, Energy and Commerce is currently seeking funding to establish a pilot project which would see a solar cooling system installed in a govern-ment-owned building.

ross.sheil@gleanerjm.com

Solar cooling: how it works

The same heat exchange process has a refrigerator where heat is cooled.

While higher temperatures outside mean greater demand for cooling inside, such weather offers increased solar energy to power the heat exchange.

The solar energy heats water inside a tank up to 93 degrees celsius which can be used as hot water instead of providing air conditioning through the heat exchange process.