Thirty years of development, but that’s it. The Perpignan design office Tecsol, which specializes in solar energy, has developed solar air conditioning. A photovoltaic plant and two heat pumps installed on the roof of the company, at the Tecnosud technological pole are already in operation. The objective is to ensure energy independence on air conditioning.
Tecsol has succeeded in connecting together photovoltaic panels and a reversible heat pump. This could have been done through a “inverter, which transforms direct current into alternating current”. This means that it converts the energy created by the solar panels into electricity that can be used by the heat pump. It therefore uses it to heat or cool the temperature of the building via air conditioning.
This is the modern version of a thirty-year-old idea, not realized at the time for lack of means. Today, André Joffre welcomes this project “which allows, in summer, to fully cover air conditioning consumption. In winter, it is estimated that 50% of heating could be covered by solar air conditioners”.
A means of energy independence
But any innovation has a cost: between 9,000 and 10,000 euros for a house. An investment that the CEO of Tecsol qualifies. For him, the price will be quickly amortized: “There are subsidies that are provided. For the moment, we are still covered by the tariff shield, but next year, people will have to pay the real price of electricity. If it increases as we expect, the return on investment should take five years“, instead of the ten that André Joffre currently estimates.
Is this solar air conditioning a step towards energy independence? For the president of Tecsol, since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the question of energy has become central and we must achieve an energy that does not depend on other powers: “We realized with this crisis in Ukraine that everything was interconnected. And 1 kilowatt hour of electricity produced in Perpignan means less Russian gas to import. We have to think about energies that allow independence, and photovoltaics is one of them.”