THE NATURAL AIR CONDITIONER

More and more companies these days are looking for ways to help protect the environment. They encourage their workers to use public transport, allow working from home to reduce the amount of energy used at offices and even pay more to the workers who recycles their trash at home. Some bigger businesses like Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse has been saving great amounts of energy in a very different way. They use ice blocks to cool their offices.

They have built and installed large water tanks in the office buildings. A special system freezes water in these large tanks by using electricity. This happens at night as less energy is needed during nighttime. The ice in the tanks is used to cool air. This air is then released to the building through pipes all day. At the end of the day, gallons of water is ready to be frozen again.

The idea of using water or ice to cool rooms is not new. The system has been used for hundreds of years. It was used before the invention of the first air conditioner. In India, people used hang wet grass mats over windows to cool their homes. In the 19th century, a hospital in Florida used ice to cool hospital rooms.

Still, it is not likely to find an ice-based cooling system in someone’s home. It is usually preferred by bigger companies with higher electricity bills. The cooling equipment requires a lot of space and a serious amount of investment. Credit Suisse spent more than three million dollars on its new system. Ice cooling at Credit Suisse saves enough energy to power about 200 homes. They say that it is worth the money. They also stated that the state of New York is encouraging companies to make environmentally-friendly investments and even offers lower taxes for them. “If you take the time to look, you can find innovative ways to be energy efficient, be environmental and sustainable,” said William Beck, the head of critical engineering systems for Credit Suisse

“When you make something mechanical, it can break. But a big block of ice . . . isn’t going to do anything but melt,” said Todd Coulard. He works for Trane Energy Services, which built the Credit Suisse system. Trane has also developed ice-cooling systems for other companies.