Water Extraction from Air: A Proposal for a New Indicator to Compare Air Water Generators Efficiency

Water extraction from air, based on reverse cycle systems, is becoming a technology more and more diffused and various models of air to water generators (AWG) are now available, all claiming the best efficiency. To date, there is not a standard indicator stating energy efficiency for AWGs, neither in the literature nor in technical practice. The only evaluation parameter, that can be found is a sort of specific energy consumption (SEC) without any clear indications about the involved calculation terms, definition of hypotheses, or environmental conditions. The current work is a first proposal of an indicator to standardise the AWG efficiency evaluation. The indicator is called WET (Water Energy Transformation); it states water production as a useful effect of an AWG machine and calculates its energy performance with an approach similar to COP (Coefficient of Performance) and EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio) evaluation. The indicator is meant to be a normalised tool that permits comparing different AWG machines, but it is also the first part of a wider study, currently under development that is oriented to obtain a global index formulation that combines WET itself, EER and COP, and it is intended for a comprehensive evaluation of all the useful effects of a reverse cycle in integrated machines, in compliance with the current efficiency evaluation approach. The current paper presents the WET equation, with a discussion about involved terms, a set of normalised calculation conditions and some application examples, including a comparison with SEC.