Air Conditioning and Your Energy Bill - Blue NRG Business Electricity

As summer starts to heat up, we also see our customer’s bills creeping up, so we thought we’d take a closer look at air conditioning. Below are some tips and ideas to help you reduce your cooling costs, as well as some very interesting facts about air conditioning…read on!

Air conditioners and your energy bill

Air conditioning use is a necessary expenditure for many businesses and it can significantly impact your energy bill. Canstar Blue reports a typical split system air conditioner costs between $0.25 and $0.95 per hour to run, so cutting your daily use of air conditioning from six to three hours could save you up to $163 this summer.

Similarly, increasing your air conditioner temperature can also save on running costs. A typical 8kW air conditioner costs $0.66/hour to run at 21°C, however it only costs $0.46 to run at 25°C – those savings add up!

It also pays to pay attention to your bills and ensure you’re using your air conditioning unit as efficiently as possible. Good insulation, eliminating draughts and keeping your air conditioner at a sensible temperature will help keep costs under control.

If you want help reducing your energy costs this summer, give our team a call and we can look at your energy history and suggest ways you can drop your energy use further. It’s just one of the many ways we help our customers save energy.

Some fascinating facts about air conditioning…

4.6 million Australians use at least one air conditioning unit.
Nearly one half of households in Australia (49%) used reverse cycle air conditioning as their main system of cooling.
In 13% of Australian households the main system of cooling was evaporative coolers, and in 10% of households it was refrigerated air conditioning which cools only.
Just over one quarter of Australian households (26%) do not use any air conditioning for cooling. This ranges from 48% of households in Tasmania to 4% of households in the Northern Territory not using air conditioning.
Rates of air conditioner ownership in Australia has doubled since the late 1990s.
Air conditioning is essential in Australia – because heatwaves are our deadliest natural hazard.
The first air conditioning in cars was introduced in 1939 in the US, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that Japanese cars with air conditioning came to Australia.
Back in the 1930s most homes didn’t have air conditioning – but movie theatres did. So naturally, customers flocked to the movies in hot weather. Studios began releasing their biggest films during summer, a trend that continues to this day.
Air conditioning units similar to what’s on the market today began appearing in the 1950s.
An New York based inventor by the name of Willis Carrier invented air conditioning and patented it in 1906. He called it ‘apparatus for treating air’. He invented it to help ink dry in a steamy Brooklyn printing press.
10% of the world’s energy use is spent on air conditioning.
70% of Saudi Arabia’s energy use is on air conditioning.
It is estimated that there is 1.6 billion air conditioning units across the globe. This is expected to rise to 5 billion by 2050.
China has the most air conditioning units in the world, followed by the USA.
The standard air conditioning settings are based on the body temperature of a 40 year old, 70 kilogram male.
Air conditioning units are becoming increasingly environmentally efficient, going from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) before the 1990s, to safer halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). In future, even more environmentally friendly chemicals will be used, such as ozone-safe hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and alternative refrigerants like ammonia.