Energy Saving by Using Newly Designed Automated Solar
Powered Evaporative Air Cooler (ASPEAC)
Abdul Al-Azzawi, Ph.D., SMIEEE, Wahab Almuhtadi, P.h.D., P.Eng., SMIEEE
Algonquin College, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Abstract — The mechanical load of the current evaporative
air cooler is the main cause of consuming high energy. This
cause prompted us to search for new ways to improve the
evaporative air-cooler in terms of energy efficiency, water use
efficiency, life, maintenance, and dependence on utility
power. As a result, we designed, constructed, and tested a
new automated solar powered evaporative cooler that
considerably improves on existing designs on all the above-
mentioned areas. Test results from the modified cooler based
on the new design show that it delivered air with noticeably
higher humidity and lower temperature than the standard
design.
Index Terms — Air Blower, Automated Solar Powered
Evaporative Air Cooler (ASPEAC), Distributed Piping Water
Drip System, Electronic Controller, Wick Measurements,
Fan, Flow Control, Motors, Smart Card, Solar Energy,
Water Pump.
I. INTRODUCTION
Air coolers are used in arid climates to adjust ambient
air temperature and humidity to comfortable levels using
the phenomenon of heat transfer by evaporation [1]. Many
different designs of such coolers exist, from traditional
coolers depending on wind used a thousand years ago to
modern ones depending on electricity. Conceptually
simple to design and fabricate, this type of cooler would
be appropriate for hot dry climates as an air-conditioning
system that has the potential of utilizing a minimum of
energy when compared to a closed cycle air conditioner
[2] – [4]. However this potential has not been realized in
practice because standard air conditioners using
refrigerant in a closed cycle dominate the market for space
cooling systems. This is mainly due to the availability of
cheap energy so far. It is anticipated that this situation
would soon change as energy prices rise [5].
There is a cause to believe that the world oil production
has hit its peak and from now on will be on the downward
slope of the production curve that will last perhaps a few
more decades at the present level of consumption [6]. At
the same time, unfettered use of fossil fuels is cited as the
cause of global warming that threatens to create climate
catastrophes. Thus it would be quite desirable to develop
efficient methods of air-conditioning that could use
renewable resources and at the same time use the least
amount of energy. Even though currently available
evaporative units are popular in places with dry and hot
climates, their design is not energy efficient [7].
2009 IEEE Electrical Power & Energy Conference
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The main reason is high energy consumption due to
mechanical loads of the current evaporative air coolers.
This prompted us to look for ways to improve the
evaporative air-cooler in terms of energy efficiency, water
use efficiency, life, maintenance, and dependence on
utility power. As a result, we designed, constructed, and
tested a new automated solar powered evaporative air
cooler that considerably improves on existing designs on
all the above-mentioned areas. Test results from the
modified cooler based on the new design show that it
delivered air with noticeably higher humidity and lower
temperature than the standard design.
II. ANALYSIS OF CURRENT DESIGN
Conventional air-coolers were purchased for baseline
tests of parameters such as electricity and water
consumption, temperature, and humidity of delivered air.
These tests identified areas of potential improvements to
the conventional air-coolers. These areas are listed below:
• Utility dependence: The dependence of air-
coolers on 120V or 230V AC utility power to
drive their air-blower motors and water pumps.
• Mechanical load: The power coupling between
the motor and the air blower was done using bush
bearings, pulleys and belts. This was leading to a
waste of power due to frictional losses.
• Evaporation stack: Water dripped down the
evaporation stack too fast, which made the water
circulating pump work for longer than necessary
duration.
• Water distribution system: The water distribution
on the evaporation stack was not uniform, which
reduced the efficiency of the evaporation process.
• Lack of intelligent process control. There was no
intelligent control of the blower or the water
pump to optimize air-cooler operation and
minimize power or water consumption.
• Overall system design. The evaporator design
was not optimal, leading to excessive use of
power.
 III. DESIGN AND EXPERIMENT
A new design was successfully accomplished for a
modified evaporative air-cooler (Figure 1) that solved the
problems listed above. One significant aspect of the new
design is the use of solar energy as the source of power for
driving the unit [8]. This is appropriate because the use of
the evaporative coolers is invariably in areas with
abundant sunshine [9]. A calculation of the maximum
available solar energy was carried out for different
geographical areas with dry climates using meteorological
data and by making assumptions on the size and efficiency
of solar panels [10] – [12]. This enabled us to identify the
geographical areas where the solar powered air-cooler
would be cost effective and carbon neutral [13] – [14].
Novel aspects of the design are discussed below.
Figure 1: New design of ASPEAC
A. Water Distribution System
The water system of the conventional air-cooler is an
active system because it uses an electrically driven water
pump to recycle the water back up to the top of
evaporative pads We designed a passive water distribution
system that eliminated the water pump. This had the
double benefit of reducing energy consumption and of
increasing the life of the system because of the elimination
of a component with moving parts. Savings in power was
estimated as equal to the power consumed by the water
pump.
We identified that the water distribution to the
evaporative pads used for increasing the evaporative
surface area have a sub-optimal design. The design of the
water distribution to the pads mounted on the side doors
was changed to optimize evaporative cooling with the
least amount of water consumption. The new design was
implemented as described later.
The water distribution was modified as per the new
passive design. The way the water is supplied to the unit
was analyzed to understand the nature of the
inefficiencies. This led to a new water distribution design
with a new automated electronic controller to control
water supply.
B. Evaporative Fan
The off-the-shelf evaporative air-cooler unit used a
blower to circulate air. The new design uses a fan instead
of the blower. This resulted in the elimination of the
mechanical bush bearing used to couple the electric motor
to the blower. This bush bearing was replaced with a ball
bearing.
The AC blower motor was replaced with a DC high-
efficiency fan motor. The fan motor will be powered by
DC power from a chosen photovoltaic panel.
The pulleys and the long belt in a typical unit are the
moving parts most prone to failure. These were replaced
with the fan driven by a DC motor.
C. Electronic Controller (Smart Card)
A system wide controller was necessary to control
indoor comfortable living conditions under various
outdoor environmental conditions. The relevant
environmental parameters are humidity, temperature, and
solar intensity. Also, a backup power supply needs to be
switched in and out when solar energy is insufficient or
not available. Optimum indoor climate conditions were
efficiently achieved using a smart electronic control board
designed in-house. This board senses many inputs, such as
solar flux, battery charge state and charging current,
temperature and humidity of the incoming air and
temperature and humidity of the interior space, the flow
rate of water and air, the speed of rotation of the fan
motor, and the level of water in the base. Hardware and
software were developed in-house to intelligently sense
these conditions to control the cooling cycle with
maximum efficiency.
IV. RESULTS
Experiments were conducted to compare the
performance of a standard evaporative air-cooler unit to a
unit incorporating the above design changes. The
experiments were conducted in an air-conditioning
laboratory located in Algonquin College, Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada. The tests of the new design were started in
January, 2009. The following sections present details of
the experimental tests that were conducted according to
the research plan for this project. New ideas that were
brought up during the course of preliminary tests of the
units were incorporated into the design and tested to refine
and improve the unit. Described below are the salient
features and results of the modifications.
A. Wick Measurements
Three types of wicks, made of different wicking
materials (such as thick cotton, circle tweed, and circle
cotton) were tested in order to find a replacement for the
water pump that pumped water to wet the pads in the
original water cooler unit. A passive design should lead to
energy savings by eliminating the pump. The wick
measurements set-up is shown in Figure 2.
 The results of the wick measurements showed that the
maximum wicking height, that of water in the tweed wick,
was around 2 to 3 cm. There was no increase in this
height even with forced evaporation with the help of a fan
blowing at the top of the wick. This method of water
transport into the pads was thus abandoned at this point.
Figure 2: Arrangement of wicks on one door of the unit
B. Distributed Piping Water Drip System
The design of the pipe water drip system is given in
Figure 3. The piping system was placed into one door and
fed by a plastic water hose attached to the central pipe
input, as shown in the figure. The water was pumped into
to the piping system with a small water pump attached to
it. This, even though an active design with a water pump
was used, has the advantage of being self-regulating in
that the amount of water discharged is decided by the size
and number of holes in the side pipes. The experiments
carried out in this system showed that the water flow from
the holes was not uniform due to pressure differential.
This was improved by optimizing the hole diameters to
create a uniform water discharge rate from all the holes.
This piping design was set aside for many reasons. It
requires water pressure to overcome the friction in the
water pipes, and would have a higher cost of
manufacturing, and maintenance requirements. Therefore,
we concentrated on an alternative design, the balcony
distribution system.
Figure 3: Experimental set-up showing water flowing in
the piping system
C. Balcony Water Distribution System
This was the final design tested for water distribution
into the evaporative pads, and is shown in Figure 3. With
this set-up there are six new balconies added to each door.
Each balcony works by catching a specific amount of
water and then allowing the water to slowly drip through
the bottom of the balcony through a series of holes. When
a balcony is full the extra water overflows through slits cut
in the front of balcony, and down to the pad, as shown in
Figure 3. This ensures that all of the balconies are filled
with water while feeding water to the pad. There are two
advantages of this design. Firstly, since the balconies are
all the same, manufacturing the product would be easy and
inexpensive. Secondly, the balconies provide an extra
evaporation area, allowing incoming air to pick up extra
water while entering the door.
Various modifications were carried out to this balcony
design during the course of the tests and the final design is
shown in Figure 4.
With this design, the elimination of the water pump in
the unit is possible. This will result in the savings of
approximately 30 watts of power.
Figure 4: Door balcony modification.
D. Temperature and Humidity Measurements
Two evaporative air cooler units were running side by
side two meters apart with the units facing opposite
directions. The two units were mounted on two dollies. It
was easy to move the units outdoors for testing under real
local weather conditions. One of the units was used as a
standard unit without any modifications; the other unit
was used to try the modifications. The modified balconies
were mounted on the three doors of the unit as explained
in the above sections. The purpose of this experiment was
to measure the effect of temperature and humidity on both
units (standard and modified) outdoors for a few days,
weather permitting. Then a performance comparison could
be done between the two units. The units were allowed to
operate under steady-state conditions before any test
measurements were taken. The weather conditions of
temperature and humidity at the site of outdoor test were
recorded using temperature/relative humidity/CFM device.
The temperature and humidity of the discharged air from
the two units and that of the outdoor site were measured at
intervals of 15 minutes as presented in Table 1. It was
noticed that the modified unit delivered air with higher
relative humidity and lower temperature than the standard
unit. This was due to the new balcony design, which
increases the exposed water to the incoming air by 272
cm2.
VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance and
support of Algonquin College and Surteck Precision
Machining for providing the resources and facilities
necessary to work on this project. Thanks are also due to
Dr. Govindanunny Thekkadath for help with various
aspects of the project and for editing this paper.

TABLE 1
VIII. REFERENCES
Temperature and humidity of the discharged air from the two
units
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V. FURTHER RESEARCH WORK NEEDED
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[8] Frank Kreith and Jan F. Kreider: Principles of Solar
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VI. CONCLUSION
[12] Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute: Refrigeration
The current modifications done on the water distribution and Air-Conditioning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979.
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The modifications in our design have also resulted in a
new type of high efficiency evaporative air-cooler having
a minimum of moving parts. This will enable the use of
solar energy to power the unit. This also in turn will result
in increasing the reliability of the evaporative cooling
system. The solar energy version of the cooler unit will be
pursued in future stages of the project.