Comparison between Evaporative Air Cooler and Conventional Air Conditioner
|
Evaporative Air Cooling |
Refrigerated Air Conditioning |
| Uses only 10% of the electricity compared with conventional air conditioner. | Uses large amounts of electrical power because of compressor. |
| As temperature rises efficiency of the Evaporative Air Cooler improves. | As temperature rises efficiency of the air conditioner reduces. |
| Cooling capacity is only limited by the air conditions. Up to 50KW of cooling can be achieved with only 1 KW of electricity used | Cooling is limited by theoretical Coefficient of Performance which means a maximum of 3.5 KW of cooling for 1 KW of electricity consumed. |
| Open doors and windows do not affect performance | Open doors and windows significantly reduce performance. |
| Uses no harmful gases for its function. So, Evaporative Air Cooler is Eco-Friendly. | Uses environmentally harmful gases. |
| Avoiding relative humidity below 50% significantly reduces static electricity problems | Leads to low relative humidity which can create high static electricity conditions. |
| Few moving parts – one fan, one pump and three solenoid valves. | Many moving parts including complex and expensive components such as the compressor. |
| Easy and simple to service. | More difficult and expensive to service. |
| Always supplies 100% fresh air. | Only supplies about 15% fresh air. 85% is re-circulated. It is not fresh. |
| Air is cooled only once. | Air is cooled many times. |
| Has no upper limit on temperature. | High ambient temperatures can lead equipment to shut down due to compressor overload. |
| Have bigger fans – pump large amounts of air. | Smaller fans – pump less air. |
| Provides flow of fresh cool air. | Provides cool, re-circulated, stale air. |
| Provides stable relative humidity levels which are more comfortable to work in. | Can lead to low Relative Humidity which is not comfortable. |
| Simple to create positive pressure in buildings giving hygiene and control benefits. | More difficult to create positive pressure with recirculation systems. |
| Operating costs are low. | Operating costs are typically high. |
| An evaporative cooler operates on 240-volt electricity, which means they don’t need special high-voltage circuits. | Some of the air conditioners require special high-voltage circuits. |
