A company from Thailand is helping to reduce heat emissions from air conditioning units by using them to heat water for consumption.
Paradoxically, air conditioners designed to cool ourselves emit a significant amount of heat into the environment.
“Is there a way to avoid heat emission or at least make use of it?” was the question Atchara Poomee often posed to herself before creating her invention and forming her own company, PAC Corporation (Thailand).
“I ended up developing a product, a water heater extension for air conditioning units, the PAC Frenergy” explains Atchara.
Air conditioning units have always been a part of Atchara’s life, as she grew up in a family of air conditioning retailers. Her ambition to reduce wasted heat came from her mother, who always taught Atchara and her brother, Apichat, to see the value in everything and to fully utilize every drop of potential. One vivid memory Atchara recalls was being continuously told “to never drain dishwashing water down the sink, but rather to pour it onto plants so that they can benefit from the minerals.”
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Growing up with this awareness and being close to air conditioners, Atchara and her brother began tweaking their units to see what they could do.
“I connected a pipe from the compressor to a water tank,” she shared, “so instead of releasing the heat, we had it heat our bath.”
The experiment was the start of an intriguing concept. Decreasing the need for a water heater by shuttling energy from the air-conditioning compressor as it worked, while at the same time having the water cool the hot coils; this setup improved the condensing unit’s ability to generate cool air, a major breakthrough.
“If I’m not imagining it, my air conditioner seems to cool faster,” shared Teeranat Phaoharuhan, a PAC Corporation customer. It is a reality, however, “as water helps cool the hot coils better and faster than typical air ventilation,” Atchara explained.
While there are similar products offered by other air conditioning brands that use air conditioning units to heat water for consumption, Atchara’s brand has maintained its unique position. PAC’s add-ons work with a customer’s currently installed unit, regardless of brand, and can be placed outdoors. Options from other brands need to be installed entirely from scratch, are brand specific, and their water tanks need to be placed indoors.
Realizing the distinction of her product prompted Atchara and her brother to register their intellectual property. Besides her trademark, she also registered a full patent for her ‘PAC Frenergy’ system to ensure her hard work would be protected, as it had been exploited in the past.
“We found out one day when a customer came in to make a claim about our product,” Apichat shared. “After some analysis, we found out that it was not ours. It was a copy that was being sold, it really impacted our reputation.”
Today, with a full patent system registered, if another brand copies PAC in even the slightest way, the company is able to claim its right to ownership.
“I can’t stress it enough,” said Atchara, “I recommend that all entrepreneurs who innovate and have intellectual property-worthy products register them, whether with a patent or trademark, to protect your inventions.”