Inverter or Fixed-Speed? Tips to Save on Air Conditioning Bills

[Anchor]

Many people want to run their air conditioners freely in hot weather, but worry about the electricity bills.

Here are some ways to cut down on cooling costs, reported by Kwon Ran.

[Reporter]

Air conditioners are summer essentials, but concerns about electricity bills follow close behind.

[Shim Young-bun / Banghwa-dong, Seoul: It is indescribable, it gets hot from the morning... When buying an air conditioner, I naturally chose one that I thought would consume less electricity.]

However, operating your air conditioner wisely can help you avoid a shocking utility bill.

First, depending on the type, inverter-type air conditioners switch to low-power operation once the target temperature is reached, making it more efficient to leave them running while maintaining the same temperature.

On the other hand, older fixed-speed models repeatedly operate their outdoor units even after reaching the set temperature, so turning them off for a short while after about two hours of use helps save energy.

For inverter-type air conditioners, it is more advantageous to leave them on when leaving the house for less than 90 minutes.

In experiments, power consumption increased by 5 percent when turning the air conditioner off and back on after 30 minutes, and by 2 percent after 60 minutes, but actually decreased by 1 percent after 90 minutes.

You should close not only the windows but also the doors of unused rooms.

When running an air conditioner in a house with a living room exclusive area of 43 square meters, closing one room door reduced power consumption by 35 percent, and closing two doors reduced it by 46 percent.

The most appropriate target temperature is 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit).

Raising the temperature by 1 degree from 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) to 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) saves 13 percent in electricity, and raising it by 2 degrees to 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit) saves as much as 22 percent.

Cleaning the filter is also essential.

[Lee Kyung-joo / Part Leader, HVAC Product Planning Group, Samsung Electronics: If you do not clean the filters, power consumption increases by an average of 3 to 5 percent.]

You can even get rebates back by reducing power consumption.

Cashback is paid out even if you reduce electricity usage by just 1 percent compared to the average usage of the same month over the past two years.

[Moon Ah-hyun / Deputy Manager, Demand Efficiency Department, Korea Electric Power Corporation: Last year, 1.66 million households participated and saved a total of 337 GWh of electricity, which is equivalent to the amount of power that all households in Chungju could use for a year.]

KEPCO is also operating an AI-based alert service that warns users via KakaoTalk messages and other channels if a sharp surge in power consumption is anticipated.

(Video footage by Kim Young-hwan | Video editing by Yoon Tae-ho | Design by Kang Yoon-jung, Park Cheon-woong, Seo Seung-hyun, and Seo Hyun-joong)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.