Study on the energy-saving control technology for the existing split air conditioners in public institutions

There is a large quantity of split air conditioners in public institutions in China, and there is an urgent demand for energy conservation. An energy-saving control strategy that considers thermal comfort and operation costs was proposed in this work, and it was embed into a plug-and-play intelligent controller to achieve energy-saving control of the existing split air conditioners in public institutions. Experimental studies in a public institution in the mid-Yangtze River region show that the proposed energy-saving control strategy can significantly reduce the energy consumption of split air conditioners in public institutions. When the control instruction issuing cycle is 15 minutes, the energy consumption of the split air conditioners can be reduced by approximately $15.02 \%$. Moreover, shortening the control instruction issuing cycle helps to improve the energysaving rate of the air conditioners during long-term operation.