CASE STUDY:
COOLERADO CORPORATION
Coolerado uses Weather Analytics’ climate data
to demonstrate to clients the energy-efficiency of
their air conditioners in places around the globe.
02
Overview
Coolerado offers an alternative to
conventional air conditioners
through unique energy-efficient
technology that has won multiple
industry awards including R&D
Magazine’s “100 Award” and
Popular Science’s “Best of What’s
New in Green Technology”.
Coolerado prides itself on producing “the most efficient air
conditioners made” and estimates
its evaporative air conditioners
use 50 to 90 percent less energy
than traditional compressor
based air conditioners—
providing a significant cost
savings and environmentally
friendly alternative to customers.
Coolerado air conditioners rely on
a patented, proprietary indirect
evaporative cooling technology
that doesn’t add moisture to the
conditioned air that is delivered
to the space to be cooled. Ambient temperature and humidity
affect the coolers’ ability to
evaporate water and create a
cooling effect.
For example, in high humidity
areas, the water does not evaporate as quickly, but in low humidity areas, the water evaporates
very quickly, which means that it
is able to cool buildings faster.
Coolerado units work best in
climates with high dry bulb
temperatures, low wet bulb
temperatures and a high
number of Cooling Degree Days.
The energy-efficiency of
convential air conditioning
systems, such as direct expansion
or vapor compression systems,
goes down as the ambient dry
bulb temperatures increase. On
the other hand, the energy
efficiency of Coolerado units
increases with higher dry bulb
temperatures.
Most air conditioners are
condenser-based and use a lot
of energy and chemicals—
converting warm air to cold
during the refrigeration cycle.
Coolerado sells innovative
evaporative cooling units that
lower the temperature in buildings through the evaporation of
water. Because of the way that
the evaporative air conditioning
unit works, the size of the unit is
based on the amount of water it
needs to process in the area it is
being installed.
Coolerado modular configuration - efficiently cooling a city buildling
Challenge
Coolerado serves a multitude
of industries including grocery
stores, manufacturers, schools,
hospitals, restaurants and data
centers. The company has
distributors and customers all
over the globe—from Arizona
to Abu Dhabi. Because its air
conditioners rely on the ability
to evaporate water at varying
speeds, Coolerado requires a
good grasp on the typical
climate conditions at a particular location in order to know
what size unit is required to
cool a building in that area.
“Our technology is highly
dependent on the local climate
conditions around the world
where the air conditioners are
going to be used,” said Steve
Clark, a Coolerado Sales
Applications Engineer who
oversees the design of its
heating and air conditioning
systems. “We can’t go out and
just talk to our customers and
say ‘well this is a good idea’
without showing them some
kind of objective data analysis
needed to demonstrate what
the cost savings will be.”
Gathering this climate data
from public sources like NOAA
and ASHRAE proved to be a
problematic and painstaking
endeavor. Most of the data
available is for the United
States, with only a few international locations.
“It was difficult to get all the
cities we needed, especially if
we wanted to drill down and
get specific sites or altitudes,”
stated Steve. “Local climate
data can make a big difference
—especially when you are in a
long coastal environment like
Los Angeles. You may be able
to find public data sources for
an airport, but if you go inland
20 or 30 miles, you can get
drastically different climate
conditions such as temperature
and humidity. We needed to be
able to show that difference—
to be able to drill down into
specific sites—both in the U.S.
and internationally.
We sell more of our units
outside of the U.S. than we do
domestically—in markets such
as Mexico, the Middle East,
South Africa and Australia.
Typically, climate data for cities
located in the U.S. is more
publicly available than for
international locations—the
location of the majority of our
customers. However, Weather
Analytics is able to go above
and beyond those public
sources—providing us with
detailed climate data for any
location in the world.”
“ Our technology is highly
dependent on the climate
conditions around the world
where the air conditioners
are going to be used. ”
- Steve Clark, Coolerado Sales
Applications Engineer
04
Solution
Coolerado must determine the
number and size of air conditioning units needed for area
distributors and customers in
a particular location, therefore,
Coolerado customer service and
business development personnel
require quick, online access to
worldwide weather intelligence
that includes variables that affect
the speed of water evaporation.
“Our units are typically used in
hot, dry climates with low wet
bulb temperatures and high dry
bulb temperatures and a lot of
cooling degree days,” said Steve.
“So areas like Mexico, Australia,
the Middle East, and the desert in
Southwestern U.S.—Phoenix
Arizona, Las Vegas and Southern
California—are all very good
climates for us.”
Coolerado turned to Weather
Analytics in order to provide them
with the global climate data
needed to show potential clients
the dramatic difference in energy
consumption and cost savings
that could be found through the
use of its energy-efficient evaporative cooling units.
“We use our in-house developed
sizing tool to pull in the TMY
climate data provided by Weather
Analytics and run calculations
needed to show what the energy
savings would be for a client at
their site,” said Steve. “Our online
sizing calculator shows the
annual energy consumption
using traditional vapor compression air conditioning systems
versus what it could be with our
technology. We give the customer
an idea of what the yearly water
use is going to be based on the
climate in their area and the
amount of water needed to
power the cooling system. It
helps us figure out how many of
our units customers will need for
a particular building.
Elevation is also a key element
that is included in the Weather
Analytics file. Weather Analytics
has been a great tool to show
customers the climate at their
specific location. We’ve done sites
in Sudan in South Africa and all
parts of Mexico that required
difficult-to-find weather metrics
at various altitudes.”
“ We use our in-house developed sizing tool to pull in
the TMY climate data provided by Weather Analytics
and run calculations needed to show what the energy
savings would be for a client at their site. ”
- Steve Clark

Coolerado M50s - cooling a manufacturing facility in Mexico
Solution cont’d
Weather Analytics uses 15 years
of historical data to create Typical
Meteorological Year (TMY) files
for Coolerado that are delivered
through a custom API allowing
for automated access. These files
incorporate air (dry bulb) temperature, wet bulb temperature and
relative humidity, among other
essential variables.
additional energy usage analysis.
In addition, Coolerado imports
Weather Analytics data automatically into Hands Down Software
via a custom-implemented API.
This psychrometric-based
software is used by building
engineers who wish to graph the
hourly climate data points on
psychrometric charts (see below).
Constructed using Department of
Energy-specified techniques,
Weather Analytics offers TMY files
in five separate formats for over
650,000 worldwide locations
designed to work with all of the
major modeling systems for
building site selection, modeling
and simulation, and energy
analysis. Publicly available sources
outside of Weather Analytics—
as previously experienced by
Coolerado—only offer TMY files
for a few thousand sites, primarily
located around airports in the
United States and in Europe.
“We’ve trained our dealers and
resellers on how to use our tools
so they just log in, set the model
In addition to Coolerado’s inhouse developed sizing tool, the
company utilizes “Climate Consultant”, which was developed by
UCLA, and “Hands Down
Software”, for additional climate
analysis. Climate Consultant
allows them to plug in the EPW
(EnergyPlus) files included in
Weather Analytics TMY files for
up, and pull the Weather
Analytics climate data for the
location they’re looking for,” said
Steve. “Another thing we can do
in our sizing tools is ‘what if’
scenarios. We can say ‘well what
if this facility was located in
Phoenix,’ what would be the ROI
there? Now, let’s contrast that to
the same location in Denver. So it
allows us to very quickly do some
what-if scenarios and comparisons. It’s a pretty slick system.”
Coolerado Psychrometric Chart Using Weather Analytics Climate Data
06
Results
“Like most small businesses, we’re
somewhat resource constrained,”
said Ryan Smith, Marketing
Manager for Coolerado. “Before we
had quality weather data, it took a
lot of time and effort to really
disseminate what climate and
locations were going to work best
for our clients. So just having this
software really eases the burden
on the limited resources we have
and it allows us to get a much
quicker grasp of climate information for our clients. Overall, it helps
us maximize our efficiency.”
By providing Coolerado with the
climate data they need, Weather
Analytics has been able to help
them show objective data analysis
to building owners in order to
demonstrate what the cost
savings would be with their
energy-efficient evaporative air
conditioning systems. It gives their
customers a better sense that
Coolerado can help them with
their cooling applications for the
customer’s specific site—which
can make a significant impact
during the sales process. Coolerado can also sell to more international locations by being able to
showcase the typical conditions
for anywhere in the world.
“It gives our customers a better
sense that we can help them with
their cooling applications for their
specific site,” said Steve. “If they are
somewhere in Mexico in a small
town or some remote area and the
only publicly available data is for
Mexico City that’s 300 miles away,
we can show what the weather
data is for their particular site
using Weather Analytics data. So
I know that really helps us on the
sales side.”
“ Having this data really eases the burden on the limited
resources we have and allows us to get a much quicker
grasp of climate information for our clients. ”
- Ryan Smith, Coolerado Marketing Manager
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