Air conditioning sucks a lot of energy, so i am thinking of ways of improving efficiency.
Some of the things that come to mind are adding reflective material to the roof. Keeping the air in internal circulation mode to not introduce any heat in to the passenger compartment and putting a water spray on to the condenser.
What I would like to do is use the AC as regenerative braking, to have it only engage when going down hills or when pressing the brake pedal. I.e. use only wasted energy to cool the car. (I used to do this by pressing the AC button on the car while decelerating which was a bit of a pain). But the cooling effect runs off pretty quickly and the clutch on the compressor needs to be reengaged.
As I have the intention of purchasing a car that needs a bit of AC work, I have the luxury of modifying the system a little bit.
What can I do to extend the cooling period? Like having to go down a long hill and being able to have AC on for a good 5-10 minutes afterwards.
If i manage to add some sort of reservoir of a couple of liters to where the refrigerant in liquid state, would that benefit me at all?
Like installing a massive receiver/dryer like in this video?