Development of an integrated air conditioner with thermosyphon and the application in mobile phone base station

Spaces with high heat density such as mobile phone base station (MBS) and data center increase fast recently. Huge energy is consumed for the air conditioning because of large indoor heat rejection and year round cooling in these spaces. The integrated air conditioner with thermosyphon (IACT) combines the vapor compression (VC) refrigeration and thermosyphon (TS) in one body, which can save energy and space for these spaces. After analyzing the problems in the existing IACT, a new IACT is proposed by using the novel heat exchangers and the self-operated three-way valve (STV), which works well in both VC and TS modes. The 3HP air cooled IACT is developed and tested in laboratory. The COP of TS mode reaches 9.43 when outdoor temperature is 20 °C lower than indoor, and the COP of VC mode reaches 2.94 under standard condition. This IACT has been applied in MBSs of different cities in China and the energy consumption is tested on-site and compared with the traditional air conditioners (TAC). It is shown that the IACT can save more than 30% energy compared with TAC.