I’m not sure what you mean by solid state AC, peltier cooling? That will never be used for air conditioning, the theoretical max COP is 1 (1w of heat removed for 1w of input power) and a decent heat pump will have a COP of 4 (4w of heat removed for each 1w of input power). Most peltier coolers have a COP of .1, which makes a heat pump 40 times more efficient.
It is impossible to make a solid state peltier cooler that is even 25% as efficient as a vapor-compression cycle heat pump at removing heat, therefore it will never gain traction in applications where a heat pump can be used.
Over the lifetime of an air conditioner, the cost of the energy used to run the equipment will be larger than the cost of the equipment itself, so efficiency is important if you want to reduce your total cost of ownership. SEER ratings eventually have diminishing returns per dollar spent, but finding the most efficient unit per dollar is time well spent.
> Over the lifetime of an air conditioner, the cost of the energy used to run the equipment will be larger than the cost of the equipment itself
My point is this is rapidly becoming not true.
Thanks for the info on the efficiency though. I’m still hoping we can figure something out. If not , we should switch to propane for the coolant. Way cheaper than whatever they keep making manufacture switch to.
We are rapidly approaching the point where we have retrofitted all lighting to be LED and all motors to be driven by VFDs, eventually we will reach a point where we’ve maxed out efficiency and new power generation will need to be built, which will push energy costs up.
Propane is cheap but it has a couple drawback. Flammability, and the refrigerant must be pure so no mercaptan can be added which means if there’s a propane leak, nobody will smell it. This is more of a problem for commercial and industrial units than residential.