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Absorption chillers are more a larger scale commercial cooling system. I think some companies may make natgas fueled units small enough to be used for SF houses.
Given the glut of natgas, they might be able to run much cheaper then electrically powered compressor units. They might also have another advantage in areas subject blackouts. Even when electricity goes down, the natgas stays flowing. If you want to run your household AC off of a natgas generator, you need a BIG genset. But with an absorption chiller, while some electricity is needed, most of the power comes from the natgas. So you can have a smaller generator and still run your AC.
I doubt the costly / complex technology is going to migrate to single family or even modest multi-family developments. There have been a handful of extremely forward looking folks that have put combined power / cooling systems into their fast food places where massive energy needs might make on-site generation competitive with grid supplies, but that is rare -- Gas Airconditioning and Cooling Equipment Home Page
They're complex. They're more efficient if it's augmented by the exhaust of natural gas heat like water heaters or gas dryer. My hospital still has one but we're fighting to get approval to remove this unit.
My take is that as a fuel, natgas is cheaper than electricity. So even if the device is more expensive, that cost would be made up, and eventually surpassed by the savings over time. The other plus being that the natgas supply seems more resilient than electricity.
However, I've now seen analyses that show that the savings aren't really there, and that it would be more expensive to run than a electric compressor driven AC.
Actually, the first home central AC units were absorption units - I lived with one of these when a boy. Both the inside and outside units are much much bigger, and many times more complex, than the vapor-compression units that replaced them in the market. I also expect the absorption system is far more expensive.
There's a darn good reason why the relatively few small scale absorption units were completely replaced by vapor-compression.
Same thing for refrigerators.
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