‘COOL’ NEW TECHNOLOGY
Split air conditioners are changing over to Inverter technology. What does this mean? Think of the conventional aircon as fixed speed device. Like water taps 50 years ago that were either open or closed. In this case, heat, rather than water is flowing at full speed or not at all. In a regular aircon the compressor is either on or off. When the thermostat reaches the set temperature, the compressor stops but the fans continue to work. When the thermostat senses that the temperature has risen, the compressor kicks in again. An inverter aircon is similar to a modern screw type water tap — you can slow down the
flow of water or heat or increase it at will. The compressor is always on but draws less or more power depending on the incoming air temperature and the temperature set in the thermostat. Think of it also like the accelerator in a car. Today, only split aircons come with inverters. The word inverter refers to the DC inverter circuit which controls the motor speed.
With inverters becoming popular, the BEE has come up with a new rating system to replace the old one star to five star aircon ratings. It is called Indian Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio or ISEER. It is now voluntary for inverter aircons but mandatory from January 2018. It takes account of the band of Indian ambient temperatures from 24 degrees Celsius to 43 degrees Celsius. ISEER is a ratio of the total heat that the system removed to the total energy consumed. So, higher the number better the performance (4.5 for five star to 3.1 for one
star).