A team of Syracuse University researchers recently presented a micro air conditioner they developed to the United States Department of Energy during a summit in Washington, D.C.

The team specifically created a Micro-Environmental Control System as an alternative to current air conditioners. The technology could save at least 15 percent of total HVAC energy consumption in the U.S., a researcher said.

The Daily Orange spoke with Professor H. Ezzat Khalifa, the NYSTAR distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, to discuss his team’s energy conservation project.

The Daily Orange: What is the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit?

Ezzat Khalifa: This was created in 2007 in response to a report from the National Academies, called the Rising Above the Gathering Storm. They fund research in energy. Projects are typically three years old and funded with (millions) of dollars.

They are concerned with innovations of energy that, if successful, can have a huge impact on the country.

The D.O.: Can you explain what your Micro-Environmental Control System is and how it works?

H.E.K.: Today, the way we keep building (comfort) in the summer and winter is we condition the entire space. We do this to make the occupants comfortable, productive and healthy.

But the occupants do not occupy the entire space. The occupant occupies only the small environment around themselves.

The DOE in 2015 said that if we raise the temperature in the summer and lower it in the winter, the country would save a huge amount of energy. Buildings consume around 40 percent of all the energy used in the U.S. A good part of this is part of HVAC — heating, ventilation and air-conditioning. But if you raise the heat in the summer you will be uncomfortable. And if you’re uncomfortable, you will not be productive.

The challenge is to find a way to make people comfortable in a building where the thermostat has been raised to uncomfortable limits. We proposed a Micro-Environmental Control System — a small air-conditioning system for one person. It just conditions the environment around the person, making the person comfortable.

The D.O.: How did you prepare for the summit?

H.E.K.: The summit happens every year. It is a very large gathering of the “who’s who” in energy. More than 2,000 people attend the summit every year.

Those who are receiving money from ARPA-E are required to display their projects in booths. We had a booth and have been displaying our project for the past three years. This year we displayed a successful prototype. There are about 300 booths at the summit.

Of those, they select six to be specially demonstrated at the summit. Our project was one of those six.

The D.O.: What is the Syracuse Center of Excellence and how are they helping you?

H.E.K.: The Syracuse Center of Excellence was established by New York State over ten years ago. It is known as the Syracuse Center of Excellence in environmental and energy systems.

It is a research center that also has the mission of collaborating with industry to transfer technology to assist the industry of New York state in the area of environment and energy systems.

The building is rated to be — there is something called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — diamond, the highest rating. They have labs in the building, but the building itself is essentially a lab.

I have a number of collaborators from the Center of Excellence. Many … faculty have labs there and rely on the Center of Excellence for assistance, research and education.

The D.O.: What is the next step for this project and your research?

H.E.K.: This project involves five partners, led by Syracuse University. We have two corporate partners — a small corporation in Syracuse called Air Innovations, which specializes in making specialty environmental control systems in small numbers.

Then we have United Technology Research Center — the corporate research arm of the United Technologies Corporations, one of the largest corporations in the country and one of the largest air-conditioning company in the world.

There is a small company in Skaneateles, Bush Technical, headed by one of the most talented engineers, who I recruited to develop a small compressor specially for our system.

Then we have Cornell University. These are the five partners, Syracuse as the lead. This is a collaboration. The secret to success in a complex program like the one we have is to have the right people from different places.

Air Innovations is planning to release a product based on the technology we developed next year.

Published on March 20, 2018 at 8:53 pm

Contact Olivia: olcole@syr.edu