Micro Thermoelectric Climate Control ; A First Step Towards More Efficient Heating and Cooling for Homes

June 16, 2007 – Vol.12 No.12

MICRO THERMOELECTRIC CLIMATE CONTROL: A FIRST STEP TOWARDS MORE EFFICIENT HEATING AND COOLING FOR HOMES?

If the US really wants to get a grip on its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions it might take a look at the way it heats and cools its homes.

Though, admittedly, I haven’t traveled the world studying the methods by which people heat and air condition their homes, but I do believe from what I’ve read that centralized forced-air systems - particularly whole house air conditioning systems - are largely a US phenomenon.

Whereas the US has concerned itself in recent years with extracting greater efficiency from furnaces, boilers and central air conditioning equipment, the rest of the world (and I may be making a vast generalization here) gets far greater efficiency, far less overall energy consumption, by heating and cooling only the spaces that need it.

Why do we heat and cool spaces we don’t occupy? Why, when a room is too cold or hot, do we adjust the thermostat for the whole house rather than - more efficiently and with greater control - just the room itself?

Slowly there may be a trend away from centralized systems. Each year more portable air conditioning units, for example - which have been used outside the US market for longer - are appearing in stores. Each year portable air conditioning appliances seem to be getting more sophisticated as well. These appliances can take the place of window air conditioning units. They are more expensive however and, according to many web-based reviews, don’t work as well as the homely but trustworthy window-mounted AC.

America may demand something better than portable AC to make the switch away from centralized heating/cooling systems.

The technology for the next generation of space heating and cooling may already be available in a new product now being marketed by office furnishings maker Herman Miller: the C2 (tm) (for Climate Control)

The C2 is designed to heat, cool and clean the air space 12 -18 inches from your body - not whole rooms. But for what it does, the company says that at least in heating mode it uses 90 percent less electricity than a conventional portable heater. (Herman Miller doesn’t say how efficient the C2 is at cooling.) It uses 80 watts of power in either heating or cooling mode. It’s only ten inches tall.

The C2 doesn’t use heating coils. There’s no compressor or refrigerant. It operates quietly. The device uses proprietary thermoelectric (TE) technology from Amerigon’s BSST subsidiary. Thermoelectric technology refers to a phenomenon that electric potential - the difference in voltage from neighboring sources - creates a temperature differential as well. One neighbor gets very cold, the other very hot.

The C2 also filters the air to grab particles as small as five microns such as pollen, dust and pet dander. According to Herman Miller the filtering system is 80-90 percent better than a typical home furnace.

Is the C2 the first step towards moving the US away from inefficient centralized heating and cooling systems? Both technology developer BSST and product Herman Miller are careful NOT to say so. Still it’s an idea worth considering: Heat and cool what we need and when we need it, nothing more.

Visit Herman Miller at http://www.hermanmiller.com (see the Be Collection for the C2) and visit BSST http://www.bsst.com/