Air conditioners are an appliance purchase inextricably linked to the electricity bill. According to a recent survey conducted by LG, a majority of Australians who own air conditioners said saving money on their electricity bill is either very important or important to them, and 77 per cent said that they never forget to turn their air conditioner off.
The research is published in a white paper from LG Australia that examines the habits of Australian air conditioner owners and provides tips on how new air conditioner technologies can be used to better control energy consumption.
“In a country that gets as hot as Australia, most people couldn’t live without air conditioning. With that unfortunately comes an energy price tag so being able to better manage their energy usage is crucial,” said Lambro Skropidis, general manager marketing at LG Australia.
“Where things can get complicated is in knowing how to manage an air conditioners’ energy usage. The challenge for us at LG is in how we educate Australians to use available technologies to take control of their energy consumption. This whitepaper aims to help demystify that for consumers.”
The top three methods to save money on their air conditioner’s electricity usage used by Australian air conditioner owners are to use it sparingly (1-2 hours per day), use fans and keep it set at a relatively high temperature (between 25-28 degrees).
LG believes that newer air conditioning technologies can also cut down the size of the electricity bill. For example LG’s Active Energy Control feature offers three levels of reduced power consumption (80, 60 and 40 per cent capacity) for individual energy-saving needs. Depending on how many people are in the room and the level of activity, Active Energy Control allows the user to cap the energy consumption of their LG air conditioner. So if a there is less activity in a room the machine can be told not work as hard to cool it down.
Available on LG’s Premium Series, Wi-Fi Smart Control provides energy usage information in real time and alerts when electricity consumption is about to reach a user’s pre-set limit. The system also allows Australians to turn their air conditioner off remotely when they have forgotten; or to turn it on when they want to come home to a cool house without keeping the air conditioner on for the full day.
Shane Quinn, Panasonic’s national business manager for air conditioning, recommends that retailers keep in mind that homes are increasingly becoming a focus point with consumers looking to save money. “People are faced with higher energy bills whilst still needing to find solutions for retaining a comfortable home environment. Energy efficient features allow users to make energy savings intuitively without any compromise to comfort.”
Panasonic uses the tagline ‘Eco Ideas’ and energy efficiency is a major platform of their air conditioning offering.
“The latest Econavi technology from Panasonic uses human activity, sunlight and temperature sensors to intelligently adapt the cooling power according to the room conditions,” Quinn said. “With just one touch of a button, customers can enjoy energy savings of up to 38 per cent on cooling mode and up to 45 per cent on heating mode.”