(626f) Evaluation of Improving the Air-Conditioner Performance and the Effect on the Cruising Range of AI-EV System

The world energy price has been increased rapidly. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce not only CO₂ emissions but also imported energy in Japan. In order to solve this problem “Smart Photovoltaic power generation (hereinafter referred to as PV) and Electric Vehicle (hereinafter referred to as EV) system" has been proposed and the effect has been clarified. In order to promote “Smart PV and EV system”, it’s necessary to spread the EV. In order to spread the EV, it’s necessary to solve some problems which are high energy consumption of car air-conditioner, high cost of storage battery and risk aversion of a dead battery.

Therefore, AI-EV which has a great possibility to improve the mentioned above three performances has been proposed. AI-EV has a hybrid system which activates the car air-conditioning system and generates electric power through the use of a small engine. AI-EV is able to raise the cruising range approximately twice as long as the conventional EV. This result suggests that the car air-conditioner performance have a great effect on the EV performance. Thus, improving the car air-conditioner performance of the system is able to make the AI-EV performance higher.

In this paper, the authors have studied the method which increases the heat transfer area of the condenser, the evaporator and the using engine exhaust heat based on refrigerating cycle, in order to improve the car air-conditioner performance. And, it has been evaluated that the cruising range is able to be extended by the improving the car air-conditioner performance.

As a result, the cooling COP_C (coefficient of performance) is able to be improved from 2.8 to 4.0 by increasing the heat transfer area of the condenser approximately three times as large as a conventional car air-conditioner. And, the heating COP_H is able to be increased from 3.2 to 4.7 by raising the air temperature for the condenser heat absorption by using engine exhaust heat. The high performance car air-conditioner is able to reduce energy consumption by 30% in summer and 32% in winter. Therefore, AI-EV which is equipped the high performance car air-conditioner using a 120 cc displacement is able to extend the cruising range of 40 km in comparison with a conventional air-conditioner and reduce the CO₂ emissions almost the same as the EV.