Effect of AC COP and Energy Tariff on Space Cooling Energy Consumption in Hot Climate Regions

This paper presents a study on the effect of having efficient and inefficient air conditioning (AC) units on the total energy needed for space cooling in hot climate regions, Saudi Arabia as an example. In such hot climate regions, space cooling is used extensively and accounts for a significant percentage of energy cost. It is inevitable to not face this challenge. One way to face it is through different tariff and increased AC units efficiency. The efficiency of an AC unit is expressed in terms of coefficient of performance (COP). In addition, there are different pricing schemes; however, two pricing structures were used; namely: block and time-of-use (TOU) structures. A case study was demonstrated for summer months in Saudi Arabia. TOU tariff resulted in less total energy consumption; however, higher kW demand compared with block tariff system for the same COP value. Finally, the Probabilistic Production Costing (PPC) method was utilized to evaluate the reliability of the system. The PPC showed that when applying TOU, reliability worsened slightly compared to block tariff system for the same COP value. Overall, the study showed that efficient AC could have a greater effect on reducing the demand than imposing a tariff such as TOU tariff.