Home ›Save Electricity ›Air Conditioners

Ideal Air Conditioner temperature for electricity savings

Abhishek Jain (Mod) November 13, 2019 406 Comments Ask A Question

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.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 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 recirculating
the internal air with cooling it to the set temperature of comfort.

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 you 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 the

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 temperature is set to 18oC (64.5oF) than if it is set to 25oC (77oF). This is because it will
take less time for the 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 compressor stops working when the thermostat senses that the desired temperature
is reached and only the fan works throwing the recirculated air. 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. In fact, some of the air conditioners are provided with a
control in which the fan also stops working for the purpose of energy-saving and one can
use the ceiling fan at low speed to maintain the airflow and is helpful in saving energy
since the energy consumption of ceiling fan is less as compared to that of AC fan.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 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.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 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 the desired
temperature as the compressor will run for a longer duration. If the temperature is set at
18oC (64.5oF) and the outdoor temperature is 38oC (100oF) then the electricity required
will be a lot more than when thermostat temperature is 24oC (75oF) and outdoor
temperature is 38oC (100oF). As per the study by ACEEE (American Council of Energy
Efficiency Economy), an increase of each 1oC of thermostat setting 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 the

thermostat?
Having said that, an increase in temperature does not reduce the comfort level. In fact, as
per ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 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.

1.5 T split AC consumes 1.5 kW power equal to 1.5 units of electric energy consumption
per hour if the compressor remains ON for the full hour. But in practice, the unit consumed
depends for the time the compressor is remaining ON to control the temperature inside
the room. Lesser the setting more is the time period for which the compressor will remain
on.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 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 the 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.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 How do old air conditioners without thermostat work?
Old air conditioners without a 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 change the air conditioner fan speed. High means that air
conditioner will throw more air and low means that the fan speed will be slow.

Short video for tips to reduce power consumption of air

conditioner in India

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 About the Author:
Abhishek Jain is an Alumnus of IIT Bombay with almost 10 years of experience in
corporate before starting Bijli Bachao in 2012. His passion for solving problems

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 moved him towards Energy Sector and he is keen to learn about customer behavior
towards Energy and find ways to influence the same towards Sustainability. More
from this author.

Please use the commenting form below to ask any questions or to make a
comment. Please do not put the same comment multiple times. Your comment will
appear after some time. Also please note that we do not reply to emails or
comments on social media. So if you have any question, please put it in the form
below and we will try to reply to it as soon as possible. If you are asking for an
appliance recommendation, please be as specific with your requirements as
possible because vague questions like asking for "cheap and best" would get vague
replies. We usually reply within a day.

Please do not put comments for backlinks as they will not be approved. The
comments are moderated and will be marked as spam if you put them for backlinks.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 अगर आप के कु छ भी सवाल ह, वह आप नीचे िदए हुए सवाल-जवाब से शन म पूछ सकते ह। आप अपने सवाल
िहंदी म भी पूछ सकते ह और हम आपको िहंदी म ही जवाब दगे। कृपया एक ही सवाल को बार बार ना डाल। आप
एक बार जब "submit " बटन दबाएंगे, उसके बाद आपका सवाल यहाँ िदखने म थोड़ा टाइम लगेगा। कृपया धैय
रख। अगर हमारे पास आपके सवाल का जवाब है तो हम उसे ज दी से ज दी जवाब देने की कोिशश करगे।
कृपया अपने सवाल ई मेल या सोशल मीिडया पर ना डाल। हम यादातर एक िदन म जवाब दे देते ह।

Although we do not charge for answering your questions, but it does take time and effort
to go through all of them and reply. If you find the responses useful and would like to pay

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 for our efforts, you can click on the image above or can send us payment via UPI at
bijlibachao@upi
« Prev Next »

report this ad

Home About Us Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Bijli Bachao in Media Why Bijli
Bachao? िहंदी

Bijli Bachao participates in the Amazon Associates and Flipkart Associates Program, affiliate
advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon
and Flipkart. This means that whenever you buy a product on Amazon or Flipkart from a link on here,
we get a small percentage of its price. That helps support Bijli Bachao with some money to maintain
the site, and is very much appreciated. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com,
Inc. or its affiliates.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 © 2020 Bijli Bachao. All rights reserved.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD