What will be the effect on my electricity bill if I leave the AC on at 26 degree for the whole night instead of keeping it at 16 degree for only 2 hours?

in hive-119463 •  3 years ago 

A common and a bit of a misconception among people about AC is that AC will reduce the temperature of the room to the value set on AC. This is true up to something like 21 °C (in India). Also, the AC takes a lot of effort to cool; Compressor keeps running; But the room temperature doesn't drop below that point. It can do this only if the room is very well protected from heat exchange (eg glass cabins). Room size and AC capacity also matter.

So a 1.5T AC, 140~180 sq ft room, normal doors and windows, will never cool to 16°C. However, the compressor will continue to run for all 2 hours. Each hour would typically consume 2.2 units - so 4.4 units.

Now imagine a full night of 8 hours. Firstly 26°C cooling will be very cold in India. But suppose so. In my experience of ~4 hours of continuous running (1.5T window AC, 154 sq ft bedroom), the AC compressor runs for about half the time. Modern inverter base ACs are more efficient. So assuming this, the AC will run for 3 hours on full load and 5 hours on the fan. Fan mode consumes about 0.5 units per hour. So the total consumption is (3 * 2.2) + (5 * 0.5) or 9.1 units in total.

I have accurate readings and no real basis for consumption. But logically, an AC at balanced load for the whole night will consume more power than an AC for 2 hours.

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