Enhancing the fuel saving and emissions reduction of light-duty vehicle by a new design of air conditioning worked by solar energy

Abstract

Increasing the demand of using fossil fuel is started appear in the recent decades, especially in the transport sector such as diesel engines. Normally, air conditioning (a/c) increases the fuel consumption about 20% in engines due to extra load needs for a/c operation. Therefore, the manufactures search more towards control strategies to reduce the fuel consumption by developing more efficient a/c system. In this study, a new design of a/c system working by solar energy was used to reach the requirement of energy and improve the fuel economy of vehicles. The a/c system was linked with flexible photovoltaic cell (PV) to compensate the electricity that generated from vehicle engine. Furthermore, the fuel consumption from a/c system (operated with and without solar energy) was measured for two vehicles. In addition, the temperature of cooling and heating was measured inside and outside room of the car. The a/c system was tested in the saloon car for both conditions of cooling and heating and. It was found that the a/c system working with solar energy reduced the engine fuel consumption by 25% in comparison with conventional a/c system. The results from a/c system showed that the cooling temperature inside cabin of car through hot day is 20 °C within half a minute, while the temperature outside is 40 °C. In contrast, the heating temperature was reach to 49.2 °C for long period of time compared to the cooling temperature. The harmful engine emissions carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (NOX) and total hydrocarbons (THCs) were reduced when a solar a/c system presented in comparison with conventional design of a/c.