Effect of room temperature set points on energy consumption in a residential air conditioning

Due to a huge amount of energy consumed by an air conditioning (A/C) system in buildings, several methods and technologies have been developed to enable this system works in the more efficient way. One of the methods is to regulate the room temperature without ignoring human thermal comfort in the air conditioned space. In the A/C system, the higher the room temperature setting, the lower the energy consumption. To investigate the effect on the energy consumption of A/C system due to difference room temperature setting, an experimental study on the A/C system with cooling capacity of 3.7 kW using R32 as working fluid was conducted. In this study, the room temperature was set from 20 to 24°C, with temperature increment of 1°C. The measurements were carried out for 180 minutes for each room temperature setting. The results show that the energy savings due to increment of 1°C from 20 to 21°C, 21 to 22°C, 22 to 23°C and 23 to 24°C are varied. The biggest and lowest energy consumption reductions occur at 21 to 22°C and 23 to 24°C, which are 13.5% and 10.7%, respectively. As a result, the increment in room temperature setting of 1°C from 21 to 22°C generates the most significant energy saving as compared to other setting temperatures.