Air conditioning for outdoor events most often involves an uninsulated tent with large air leaks, no shading from the sun, and significant amounts of heat and humidity generated inside from cooking and a high density of people. Often times the tent is the key meeting space for the event and it is necessary for people to be as comfortable as possible.
The traditional approach to event cooling has been by brute force – huge trailer mounted compressor and refrigerant air conditioning systems are parked next to the tent where big electrical cables are connected to special electrical boxes or large, trailer mounted generators.
Event cooling with Coolerado systems is much easier and provides more comfort. Coolerado systems require one tenth the amount of power to operate, and Coolerado systems provide 100% fresh air instead of trying to recirculate the air in the tent. Heat, humidity and pollutants are displaced using the natural properties of the air instead of fighting it with twice as much duct and brute force.
Coolerado – the most efficient air conditioners made
Hosting a Presidential political convention means providing hundreds of media people a place to comfortably work and connect to the internet.
For the Democratic national Convention in Denver in 2008, a 2 story tent was planned in an urban parking lot near the convention venue. The whole parking lot was needed, leaving no room for trailer mounted air conditioners and generators. Furthermore, upgrading the power to the adjacent building to be able to handle a traditional cooling solution for only one week’s use was prohibitively expensive.
As the tent was being erected a few days before the convention, the opaque roof panels were damaged. The only panels available to replace the damages panels were clear panels, creating a green house environment on the second floor.
Eight Coolerado R600s were installed two days before the convention started, and only 5,000 watts of power was needed to power them all.
During the peak of the day temperatures soared to over 90 degrees and the sky was clear. All feared the worst, but the Coolerado air conditioners managed to hold the second floor to tolerable temperatures in the low 80s. The first floor was very comfortable in the low to mid 70s. The event hosts were extremely pleased with the amount of comfort provided by the Coolerado air conditioners.
Music Festival
Music Festival – The Mile High Music Festival is held at a sports complex where the performance stages and tents are located in the middle of an expanse of grass soccer fields where only vehicles with oversized tires are allowed. After the stages and tents are transported to their location and erected, other equipment like air conditioners are moved in at the 11th hour. The air conditioners must be simple, reliable, and easy to set up.
Event organizers discovered Coolerado only a few weeks before the event, but quickly decided that the environmental friendliness, ability to cool, and minimal power is what they had hoped for. The event organizers decided to use Coolerado on the biggest, most demanding tent – the VIP tent – and use traditional systems on the others.
Even as temperatures climbed to 100 degrees, the VIPs were very comfortable. So comfortable in fact, the musicians migrated away from their own tents cooled with traditional systems to the Coolerado conditioned VIP tents.
Mobile Solar Powered Air Conditioning
Air conditioning using only the power of the sun that is simple and affordable has been an unachievable goal . . . until Coolerado. With financial assistance from the Colorado Governor’s Energy Office, Coolerado built a complete, off the grid, mobile, solar powered air conditioner.
The Coolerado C60 only draws 600 watts of power to cool 3,000 SF of space; just 4 solar photovoltaic panels can power it. As solar PV panels heat up, their production significantly drops producing about 30% less power. Coolerado exhaust air can be used to gain some of that power back by ducting it across the back of the panels to cool them. The panels are over 40 degrees cooler in the heat of the summer, gaining over 15% more power from the panels. Built for demonstration and education purposes, the trailer has a real time display that shows power production from cooled and un-cooled panels, as well as power used by the air conditioner.
Air conditioning is responsible for about half of summer peak power demand, and comes at a time where power plants are at the lowest efficiency of power production. Solar air conditioning could substantially reduce peak demand issues, eliminating or delaying construction of new power plants and substantially reducing carbon dioxide releases.
