Development of Energy Saving Automatic Airconditioner

This paper discusses an automatic airconditioner which adopts a new energy saving control method for controlling heat exchange at the heater and the cooler instead of the conventional reheat air-mix one. In this new airconditioner, the cooler does not work when the passenger room is heated and similarly the heater does not work when the passenger room is cooled, minimizing the use rate of the cooler which accounts for the most of the airconditioner's power consumption. Nonetheless, the heat released from the airconditioner to the room can be adjusted smoothly from maximum cooling to maximum heating just the same as in the conventional type.

The results of on-vehicle comparison tests of the above two methods have shown that the energy saving control method saves nearly half of the energy which is consumed in a year with the conventional one, with the room being kept around 25°C (77°F)