Experimental investigation of energy consumption of VFD and ON/OFF A/C systems in residential area in Saudi Arabia

In recent years, energy savings in air-conditioning (A/C) systems has become one of the hot topics of applied energy towards innovative management and efficient utilization of the operating systems. Achieving thermal comfort with minimum energy consumption is the main concern for innovative designing of an air conditioning system. The A/C system is the chief contributor to energy consumption in hot and humid areas. An innovative design of an A/C operating system is essential to satisfy a high thermal performance and maintain the desired thermal comfort level. The aim of this work was to experiment the thermal performance and the energy consumptions of A/C units for two identical houses located in the Dhahran area of Saudi Arabia. In this case, the experiment work for both houses has been conducted incorporating two different air-conditioning systems. These include a conventional ON/OFF cycle A/C system and a variable frequency drive (VFD) A/C system. LabView platform with the data acquisition has been utilized for the experimental work to monitor the actual climate and power consumption. The analyses pertain to the assessment of energy consumptions and energy savings. The variable frequency drive controller provides higher efficiency and lower cost of A/C systems. Consequently, comparing the behavior of the energy consumption for both A/C units shows a clear and strong correlation between them.