Seasonal cooling performance of air conditioners: The importance of independent test procedures used for MEPS and labels

Abstract

Minimum energy performance standards and labels are commonly used tools to reduce the household energy use thus mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. However, the technical foundation for minimum energy performance standards and labels are test procedures for rating and testing of appliances. To determine the seasonal cooling performance of air conditioners, the current test standards require fixing of the compressor speed of the units to achieve steady-state conditions; this way of operation, however, differs from real-life use. To make the seasonal cooling performance testing better reflect the real use conditions, this study proposes a compensation method which can be conducted independently from manufacturer data and still allows modulation of the tested units. Our results show that the tested units behave differently under part-load conditions, which results in a lower energy efficiency rating for some of the tested devices.