There Is No Such Thing as Cold—Only the Absence of Heat When an air conditioner or refrigerator is cooling a space, it isn’t adding cold air into the space. The purpose of the refrigeration cycle is to remove the heat in a given area and eject it outside. Less heat means a colder room. In simple terms, a refrigeration cycle's mission is heat absorption and heat rejection. As any HVAC instructor will tell you (emphatically), you can't make cold, you can just remove heat. The refrigeration cycle, sometimes called a heat pump cycle, is a means of routing heat away from the area you want to cool. This is accomplished by manipulating the pressure of the working refrigerant (air, water, synthetic refrigerants, etc.) through a cycle of compression and expansion. The Refrigeration Cycle in HVAC A refrigeration cycle has four major components: the compressor, c...