Though the use of air-conditioners has been growing, India is lagging behind in use of inverter air-conditioners that are power-savers.
From next year, star-rating that denotes power consumption will be made mandatory for inverter air-conditioners, according to Raja Sriraam, National Chair, Advocacy of Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE).
The companies producing inverter air-conditioners have been asked to declare the star-rating of the compressors.
After testing in its labs Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) will standardise the equipment and give star-rating to them, Mr. Sriraam says.
The power consumption varies between air-conditioners with fixed speed compressors and variable drive, he says.
While single star air-conditioners have been banned, the other star-rated split and window air-conditioners with fixed speed compressors consume more power than inverter air-conditioners with variable frequency drive that have variable speed.
Advantages
Explaining the advantages of air-conditioners with VFD, he says, they will reduce or increase speed depending on the cooling requirement. Compared to regular air-conditioners, they consume 30 to 40 per cent less power, he says.
Mr. Sriraam was here to participate in the Southern Regional conference of ISHRAE.
In Japan 80 % of the domestic air -conditioners are inverter type and in China 40 % but India has only 10 to 12 % inverter air-conditioners. “We have a long way to go. Using inverter air-conditioners will bring down power consumption drastically resulting in huge power saving,” he says.
He terms the view that inverter air-conditioners were more complicated, a myth. It only required well-trained technicians to understand technology.
On its part, ISHRAE, a body of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration professionals, imparts a three-month certified professional course meant mainly for technicians to help improve their understanding of the subject and conduct a test so as to improve quality of service, says Mr. Sriraam.
Besides, ISHRAE Institute of Excellence in Bangalore and New Delhi gives four-month intensive coaching to technical people and graduate-level engineers to make them fully qualified.
It comprises three-month coaching in institute and one month field-level training.
