Wyedean School in Gloucestershire has ordered its second SolarCool system following a six-month in-house evaluation period of SolarCool’s combined compression-absorption technology vs a Daikin system, both of which supply identical classroom environments.

The SolarCool family of products was introduced to the European Market via SolarCool Energy Ltd in mid-2014 and has since enjoyed rapid success in the ever growing energy-efficiency market.

SolarCool can also be retrofitted to most well known air conditioning and refrigeration systems, with the proviso that the system has variable load ability - inverter, staged, screw-type, digital scroll for example. In standard cooling units, the compressor has to manage the full compression load, however at the time it’s most needed (when the sun is out), the SolarCool system takes on the workload, allowing the compressor to back off or stop, therefore significantly reducing the amount of electricity consumed by the entire system. Subsequently, the whole system has a much easier ‘life’ and is therefore less prone to maintenance issues.

In this particular case SolarCool was installed in one of two IT teaching rooms directly adjacent to one another in the school. This then created a direct comparison environment, enabling credible energy consumption measurement of the SolarCool technology against the existing Daikin system installed in the comparable environment.

“Given the nature of the installation there were obviously periods whereby no credible direct comparison could be made. However, where we had comparable like-for-like we recorded energy savings as high as 86%, with the lowest recorded efficiency differential being 66%,” said Colin Griffiths, md of Cotswold Vale Refrigeration Ltd.

“SolarCool has been evaluated by many high profile businesses over the last 18-months, including Cummins, Intel, Sodexo, British Ministry of Defence, Spar and Cable & Wireless, all of which have hit, or are hitting, projected efficiencies. SolarCool is now installed across five separate continents, achieving phenomenal results in many different weather systems across the globe - from UK food retail to South African car manufacturing plants. Not a single system has failed to hit efficiency expectations.”

Mark Crabtree, SolarCool Energy Ltd md, said: “No other system... offers these type of efficiencies, and although we are firm in our stance that all of the ‘testing’ on this system is complete, we continue to welcome any client requiring their own evaluation of the SolarCool system within their own environments.”

Rob Ford, the new head teacher at Wyedean School, has a personal ambition to create an energy efficient environment for his school, not only from a cost saving perspective, but also from an environmental perspective.

Mr Ford added: “In addition to teaching, our job is to send the right message to our students in regards to the future of our environment. We recently enquired about installing solar PV on the roof of the school, but unfortunately due to the levels of solar PV already on the grid in our area, we were informed that we could only install a limited amount. It seems however that SolarCool is our solution. Comparing the data, just the one system we have installed is now creating efficiencies equal to energy provided by the installation of c.30-40 250W Solar PV systems. Let’s face it, reducing energy consumption is as important as producing energy from natural resources, with the added benefit of a lower upfront cost and therefore a substantially lower return on the school’s investment”.

Left to right: Colin Griffith (CVS md), Mark Crabtree (SolarCool md) & Rob Ford (Wyedean School Head)