Air conditioners are not the best for the planet long term, but Europeans may need to care a bit more about themselves in the short term and start installing more of them.
The exchange of heat is proportional to the temperature difference. It will always take more energy to keep that gap wider between inside and out. The most energy efficient thing you can do is to deal with the outside temp as much as you can bear it and keep that inside/outside differential as low as possible
I don’t think wwwbdd is agreeing with you. You’re suggesting keeping a huge temperature gap all day. I’m just turning on my AC when the temperature outside has already dropped, so I maintain a relatively constant gap. Using the AC only at night uses a lot less electricity (at the cost of it being warming until that point). If you keep it cool during the day, more heat gets in, which means more energy waste to cool it.
Closest thing I can find to a reputable source (not a random blog post, most of which say turning it off during the day saves power):
Jennifer Thorne Amann, MES, buildings program director for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). While it may seem like your unit has to work hard to cool a space down from 80 to 75 degrees, “air-conditioning systems run most efficiently when they’re running at full speed,” rather than running for shorter periods at a less
I know the same is true for car engines. They’re least efficient when warming up and running at low effort. They’re more efficient when working hard.
The exchange of heat is proportional to the temperature difference. It will always take more energy to keep that gap wider between inside and out. The most energy efficient thing you can do is to deal with the outside temp as much as you can bear it and keep that inside/outside differential as low as possible
There you go, said better/more clearly.
I don’t think wwwbdd is agreeing with you. You’re suggesting keeping a huge temperature gap all day. I’m just turning on my AC when the temperature outside has already dropped, so I maintain a relatively constant gap. Using the AC only at night uses a lot less electricity (at the cost of it being warming until that point). If you keep it cool during the day, more heat gets in, which means more energy waste to cool it.
Closest thing I can find to a reputable source (not a random blog post, most of which say turning it off during the day saves power):
I know the same is true for car engines. They’re least efficient when warming up and running at low effort. They’re more efficient when working hard.