Explained: Does turning the AC off when not at home save energy? Data reveals the impact

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The answer boils down to how energy intensive it is to remove heat from your home.

who use energy models that simulate heat transfer and A/C system performance to tackle this perennial question: Will you need to remove more heat from your home by continuously removing heat throughout the day or removing excess heat only at the end of the day? It’s influenced by many factors, such as how well your house is insulated, the size and type of your air conditioner, and outdoor temperature and humidity.

According to our unpublished calculations, letting your home heat up while you’re out at work and cooling it when you get home can use less energy than keeping it consistently cool – but it depends.First, think about how heat accumulates in the first place. It flows into your home when the building has less stored heat than outside. If the amount of heat flowing into your home is given by a rate of “1 unit per hour,” your A/C will always have 1 unit of heat to remove every hour.

It’s often less than that, though – homes have a limit to how much heat they can store. And the amount of heat that enters your home depends on how hot the building was to begin with. For example, if your home can only store five units of thermal energy before coming to an equilibrium with the outdoor air temperature, then at the end of the day, you will only ever have to remove five units of heat at most.

Additionally, as your home heats up, the process of heat transfer slows down; eventually, it reaches zero heat transfer at equilibrium when the temperature inside is the same as the temperature outside. Your A/C also cools less effectively in extreme heat, so keeping it off during the hottest parts of the day can increase the overall efficiency of the system.

We considered three temperature strategy scenarios. One has the indoor temperature set to a constant 76 degrees Fahrenheit . A second lets the temperature float up to 89 F during an eight-hour workday – a “setback.” The last uses a temperature setback to 89 F for a short four-hour workday.

 

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