California is often on the leading edge of renewable energy technologies, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Southern California Gas Company is testing out a new solar thermal cogeneration technology capable of generating power and air conditioning at the same time.

Installed on the roof of the SoCalGas Energy Resource Center, it is the first utility company in the U.S. to test the new technology developed by Cogenra Solar. It is part of a multi-year initiative to demonstrate the viability of such technologies for commercial and industrial adoption.

Up until now, standard solar thermal cogeneration systems combined photovoltaics to generate electricity and solar thermal technologies to trap the excess heat coming off the panels to produce hot water and/or heat. We recently covered a solar cogeneration project at a healthcare facility where the panels will provide electricity and the generated hot water will be sent to the reverse osmosis hot water boiler. By adding in the ability to also power an air chiller with the hot water, the new system can now be used to provide electricity, hot water, heat, and air conditioning, all from a single installation which takes up less space than a typical flat-panel solar system.

Andrew Burger from Triple Pundit explained how the system will use “absorption chilling” to cool down the air:

In contrast to conventional mechanical chillers, absorption chillers use heat to evaporate water contained in a low pressure environment. That circulating, cooler fluid then captures heat from its surroundings – be it another stream of flowing liquid or the air in the open space of a room, thereby cooling it.

The solar thermal cogeneration system put in place by SoCalGas and Cogenra provides 10 tons of cooling, enough to cool down two averaged-sized California homes, in addition to generating electricity for the facility.

SoCalGas vice president of customer solutions Hal D. Snyder said that the system will “showcase new solar technology and provide a renewable resource for our customers” and will help California reach its renewable energy mandate of serving 33 percent of their loads from renewable sources by the year 2020.

[via the Los Angeles Times]

Image Credit: PRNewswire