04 · Hardware · HVAC
AC Power Saver
A retrofit HVAC device that recovers an air conditioner's own condensation and uses it to pre-cool intake air, cutting cooling power draw by 10%+ across 500+ deployed households and factories.
A running air conditioner condenses water out of the air it cools and normally just drains it away — water that's already at, or below, the compressor's target output temperature. This device captures that condensate and routes it through a recovery loop that pre-cools the compressor's intake air before compression starts, so the compressor does less work to reach the same setpoint. It's a retrofit, not a redesign: it attaches to an existing unit's condensate line rather than replacing any part of the refrigeration cycle.
Where it's deployed
The device is installed across 500+ households and factories, each seeing a 10%+ reduction in cooling power draw. That deployment scale — real installed units under real seasonal load, not a lab prototype — is what the thermodynamic tuning had to hold up against.
IP and funding
The design is covered by 6 secured patents. The company raised RMB 2 million in VC funding and joined Shanghai University's business incubator program, where I was the only teenage founder in the cohort.
Jinke Energy also makes heating rings under the same GIENKEE brand — see heating-ring-pipeline, the software I built to automate that production line.