Ideal Air Conditioner temperature for

electricity savings
Abhishek Jain March 6, 2014

Buying an air conditioner once considered a sign of luxury, is now becoming quite common
in India. Many urban homes are equipped with air conditioners in one or more rooms. But
everyone who owns an air conditioner knows that it comes at the cost of increasing electricity
bills. Although cooling does take a lot of electricity but taking effective steps can surely get it
down. One of the main things that can help is maintaining the right temperature for the air
conditioners.

How does an air conditioner work?

For most people, air conditioner just throws cool air at the temperature one sets it at. But does it
really work that way? In fact air conditioner during cooling process, takes the indoor air, cools it
by passing it through evaporator coil and throws it back in the room. It is quite opposite to how
our good old air coolers used to work. Air coolers used to take outside air, cool it with water and
throw it in. But air conditioners just work on internal air.

How does the thermostat work?

If you set the thermostat at 18oC (64.5oF), does it mean that the air conditioner will cool the room
faster than if set at 25oC (77oF)? No. The thermostat just checks the temperature of the air inside
the room and stops the compressor when the temperature reaches the desired level. This means
that the compressor will work longer if the temperature is set to a lower level, i.e it will work
more and use more electricity if temperature is set to 18oC (64.5oF) than if it is set to 25oC
(77oF). This is because it will take less time for air to reach to 25oC (77oF) than 18oC (64.5oF) as
the compressor is working with the same power or wattage.

What happens when the compressor stops?

The air conditioner just blows the fan when the compressor stops and thermostat reaches the
desired temperature level. At this stage the electricity consumption is only for the fan which is
running and not for the compressor. The compressor will start again when the thermostat detects
that the temperature has increased again from the levels that are set. Compressor is the most
electricity consuming component of an air conditioner.

What factors impacts electricity consumption of Air Conditioner?

There are 4 factors that influence the electricity load:

1) Indoor air temperature

2) Outdoor temperature

3) Thermal insulation of the room

4) Temperature setting of the air conditioner.

If the difference between temperature desired and indoor/outdoor temperature is huge, then the
air conditioner will need lot more electricity to cool the indoor air to desired temperature as the
compressor will run for longer duration. If the temperature is set at 18oC (64.5oF) and the
outdoor temperature is 38oC (100oF) then the electricity required will be lot more than when
thermostat temperature is 24oC (75oF) and outdoor temperature is 38oC (100oF). As per study
by ACEEE (American Council of Energy Efficiency Economy), increase of each oC can save 3-
5% of units consumed. This can considerably bring down the units consumed per month in the
electricity bill.

What is the ideal temperature that should be set on thermostat?

Having said that, increase in temperature does not reduce the comfort level. In fact as
per ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers), the
ideal temperature for thermal comfort is between 23.5oC (74.3oF) and 25.5oC (78oF) in summers
(depends on several factors as listed on wikipedia). Thus setting the temperature to 24oC
(75.2oF) saves on electricity bill and provides good comfort. Using ceiling fans along with air
conditioners can additionally help in increasing the thermostat
temperature.

Does “Quick Cool” option in Air Conditioners help?

Setting an air conditioner to quick cool sets it’s temperature to 18 or 16 oC (64.4oF or 60.8oF) .
This means that the compressor stops only when indoor temperature reaches this level. But while
coming down from 35 or 40 oC (95oF or 104oF) it would have surely crossed 24oC
(75.2oF) which is a comfortable temperature. So using “Quick Cool” option does not help
because more electricity is used to get the temperature down to 18oC (64.5oF) whereas
compressor would have stopped in between if the temperature was set to 24oC (75.2oF) thereby
consuming less electricity.

How do old air conditioners without thermostat work?

Old air conditioners without thermostat have high, medium and low cool options. As we learnt
earlier that compressors of air conditioners work in binary mode (either they are on or off), an air
conditioner without thermostat does not control air temperature. The high, medium and low
options just changes the air conditioner fan speed. High means that air conditioner will throw
more air and low means that the fan speed will be slow. The options do not change the
temperature of the room, nor do they change the electricity consumption.