Air conditioners ISEER rating; Power consumption calculations from ISEER rating

ISEER Rating you often spotted on Commercial advertisements for air conditioners and every company is claiming that they are giving highest ISEER rating and rating is also mentioned for the same. They also even claim that their product consumes very low electricity. Now it becomes very important to know about what is ISEER rating? How it is very important parameter before buying a product. In this article we will study about ISEER rating.

With everyday new inventions in air conditioning it becomes important for BEE to introduce methodology for measuring efficiency of air conditioners. With invention of inverter air conditioners, it was thought that it may not be successful but inverter air conditioners become very successful. But they were introduced without any star label which becomes very important factor while buying any electrical/ electronic product. So people want star rating of inverter air conditioners. To overcome this problem ISEER was introduced. 

Earlier for measuring performance of Traditional air conditioners EER was introduced.

EER - Energy efficiency ratio also known as coefficient of performance

EER is measured as ratio of output wattage (i.e. cooling capacity) and Input power taken by air conditioner.

EER= Output Wattage (Cooling capacity)

         Input Power taken by Air conditioner

From formula Stated above Traditional air conditioners efficiency can be ascertained, this efficiency can be further divided into 5 groups named according to star rating of air conditioners. This star rating works very well for Traditional air conditioners.

For Inverter air conditioners this formula doesn’t work as both cooling capacity and Input power taken by air conditioner vary.

SEER was introduced known as Seasonal Energy efficiency ratio. In every season temperature will not be constant and keeps on varying. So working principle behind SEER is that temperature will not remain constant throughput the year. So as there are variations in temperature so are the cooling requirements vary e.g. cooling requirements will be different to cool a particular space at 40 degree , 45 degree and 35 degree so as operating hours of air conditioners.

SEER has taken care of all these factors i.e. temperature variations throughout year and air conditioners usage pattern. So SEER will different in different countries as temperature profile will be different. Now what BEE has done that they had defined ISEER i.e. Indian Seasonal energy efficiency ratio.

ISEER = Total annual amount of heat Air conditioner can remove from the indoor when operated at active mode

                                   Total annual amount of energy consumed by the Air conditioner

Thus ISEER is the ratio of heat removed to total energy consumed.

A complete guide for right rating selection and installation guide for air conditioners:-

http://electrialstandards.blogspot.com/2017/04/air-conditioner-complete-selection-and.html

This is best used when there are two air conditioners compared and also there usage will be same, but as usage may be different so electricity consumption may be different.

When you are going to compare Star ratings of different types of air conditioners, Window, Split and inverter,  it becomes quite difficult to compare air conditioners . Standards defined are even provide detailed information for the same. Although with introduction of EER for fixed speed air conditioners (Split and Window)  and ISEER for inverter air conditioners help in selection of air conditioners a lot and compare them also.

As per national weather records temperature distribution and operating hrs of air conditioner are as below, Data taken from BEESTARLABEL.COM:-

In above Temperature range is shown in 1st Row.

In Second row are Average Annual Hrs which indicates temperature remains for no. of Hrs.

In 3rd row is Fraction which is fraction of total no. of Hrs for which temperature remains

In 4th Row is No. of operating Hrs of Air conditioners- In 4th row total Hrs are also selected as 1600 hrs.  

Now BEE has made ISEER rating according to star rating of air conditioner but this is not mandatory and it was introduced in 29/06/2015 and will remains valid until 31/12/2017.  According to this star rating and corresponding ISEER rating is below:-

1 Star – Minimum ISEER rating should be 3.10 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 3.29.

2 Star- Minimum ISEER rating should be 3.30 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 3.49

3 Star - Minimum ISEER rating should be 3.50 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 3.99

4 Star- Minimum ISEER rating should be 4.00 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 4.49

5 Star- Above 4.50

BEE is making mandatory from year 2018 will be valid up-to Dec’19 onwards that for Star rating and corresponding ISEER rating, e.g. for

1 Star – Minimum ISEER rating should be 3.10 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 3.29.

2 Star- Minimum ISEER rating should be 3.30 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 3.49

3 Star - Minimum ISEER rating should be 3.50 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 3.99

4 Star- Minimum ISEER rating should be 4.00 and Maximum ISEER rating should be 4.49

5 Star- Above 4.50

Rating are same but BEE has made it mandatory from 2018.

Now days you have seen that Air conditioners are coming with ISEER rating of 5.8 even.

With recent launches in air conditioning it was found that dual inverter AC will save 834 units in-comparison to 5 star split air conditioner.

Air conditioners with having capacity of 1 ton will be capable for disposing off heat  of 12000 BTU (British Thermal Units)

Why Air conditioner’s capacity is measured in Ton:-

Air conditioners 1 Ton doesn’t indicates that it’s weight is 1 ton. Actually this indicates amount of heat that air conditioner is capable of removing from house in one hour. 1 ton of air conditioner will be capable of removing 12000 BTU/Hour heat from house. But still question remains why Ton is unit of measurement for air conditioner capacity.

Before invention of air conditioners people used ice for cooling purpose. They take that ice from frozen lakes or rivers. Now for melting 1 pound of ice 143 BTU are required at 32 degree Celsius, this means that if you have 1 ton equivalent to 2000 pounds of ice then 28600 BTU are required to melt the same. If this ice block is melted uniformly throughout the day than 11917 BTU/ Hour will be required which is rounded up to 12000 BTU/ Hour, which was the methodology adopted for arriving out at 1 ton AC capacity.

How Power consumption is related to ISEER rating of Air conditioners:-

12000 BTU/ Hour 3517 Watt/hour  power

Now for Assuming the ac to be a 3 star rated, its ISEER=3.5

For 2 ton AC ,power consumption of ac =cooling capacity/ISEER

                                                                            =2*3.517/3.5

=2.00 kWh.

In Split and Inverter air conditioners there are two units , Indoor unit is known as evaporator and outdoor unit is known as compressor. Most of power is consumed by outdoor unit only i.e. compressor only. Compressor get started only when indoor temperature is more than desired temperature. So you can assume that compressor will remains ON only for 60-70% of time so power consumed will be 60-70% of 2 KWH.

So from above you will see that more will be ISEER , lesser will be the power consumed by air conditioner per hour.

A complete guide for right rating selection and installation guide for air conditioners:-
http://electrialstandards.blogspot.com/2017/04/air-conditioner-complete-selection-and.html

Transmission conductors are Aluminum instead of copper

Why Aluminum conductor is used in Transmission instead of copper conductors.

Material used in Transmission lines should have following properties:-

1.       Low cost of construction

2.       Resistivity should be lower

3.       Material should have high conductivity

4.       Material should have Low temperature coefficient

5.       Material should have High current carrying capacity

6.       Material should have High mechanical strength

7.       Weather resistance properties of material

8.      There should have good elasticity of material 

The metals which partially fulfill the above requirements are copper, aluminum and steel. These are used alone or in combination.

Aluminum conductors are having conductivity closer to conductivity of copper conductors. Aluminum conductors have conductivity 61% of copper conductors. For Same resistance of that of copper conductor, aluminum conductor weight will be half of that copper conductor. Although when we compare conductivity we should consider copper conductors for transmission instead of aluminum conductor. But Aluminum conductors have resistance 1.6 times as much resistance/foot of that equivalent gauge of copper conductor. This means for equivalent conductor size aluminum conductor will have more power losses (I²R). These losses will be 60% higher when compared to copper conductors. The above stated reason will justify that we should use copper conductor in transmission instead of copper conductors.

Aluminum conductors are used for transmission of electricity instead of copper conductors is due to below stated reasons:-

(i)                 Lower cost

(ii)               Lower density

Now let’s above two factors will be considered while designing Transmission system and why we use aluminum conductors instead of copper conductors:-

(i)                 Lower cost:-

Weight of Aluminum conductor is around 30% of Copper conductor for per meter length this means that we required more material which leads to very higher cost of Transmission , also copper is costlier about 5-6 times that of aluminum conductor. Higher weight means transmission towers to be strong enough to bear the load of conductor which means higher cost of designing the transmission towers. Since Transmission system is in multiple Kilometers so it is always beneficial to use aluminum conductors considering higher cost associated with copper conductors.

(ii)               Lower density.

Aluminum conductors have lower density of conductor. Density of conductor is about 1/3^rd  the weight of copper conductor for same volume , so aluminum conductor will be lighter than copper conductor. So mechanically we can increase cross-section of aluminum conductor. With increase in cross-sectional area I²R loss will get reduced as Resistance is inversely proportional to cross-sectional area of conductor. By increasing cross-sectional area to double , this will increase diameter of conductor to 1.414 times. With increase in cross-sectional area I²R loss will get reduced to 0.8 times the I²R loss in copper conductor which earlier were 60%. Now increase in cross-sectional area weight of conductor will increase but still weight will be 2/3 times the total weight of copper conductor so constructing towers will become cheaper as they don’t need to be as strong by a factor of .66

Weight of Aluminum conductor is around 30% of Copper conductor. That means even though we used 2/3 the weight above we are still at a 10% cost (.66 x 1/6) for the wire itself, not to mention the tower costs savings as mentioned above.

So there are following advantages associated while using Aluminum conductor instead of copper conductors:-

1.       With increase in Conductor size by double resistance will get reduced by 20% and I²R power losses will be reduced from 6% to 5%.

2.       Very lower construction cost as due to lower weight and lower cost of aluminum conductor , cost of construction is 33% , tower strength required is less.

3.       Huge saving approx. 90% of the cost of the wire itself due to difference in material costs between aluminum and copper conductor.

4.       Aluminum conductors are easy to bend and easy to handle as aluminum has more elasticity then copper.

Although transmission losses are higher in aluminum conductors but while due consideration of above factors we must consider aluminum conductors for transmission.

There is another question arise why not we use Steel conductors for transmission as cost is very low for Steel conductors?

Steel conductors are not used for Transmission as these have very lower skin depth as they have large permeability at 50/60 HZ in comparison to copper and aluminum conductors, this will leads to very high huge power losses due to high resistance.

Energy Meter connection;Single Phase; Three Phase; CT operated Energy meters

In every domestic, industrial and commercial establishment there is need of electricity and for measuring power consumption energy meters are installed in all establishments.

For domestic connections usually direct meters are used means power supply wires are directly connected at input and output is withdrawn from its output and for large and commercial establishments CT operated energy meters are used as direct meters are not feasible to install as size of these energy meters will be very high. It is usually recommended to install CT operated meters if load requirements from energy meters are more than 15 KW.

CT operated meter is most preferable meters in all establishments as they are easy to install and operation is very simple.

In this article we study about installation of energy meters both Houses and as well as commercial and industrial establishments:-

In Domestic connections both single phase and three phase energy meters are used:-

For single phase meters wiring is quite simple there are 4 terminals at the meter, 2 No’s for input power supply and 2 no’s for output power supply. Wiring diagram for installation of single phase energy meter is as below:-

For Three phase Energy meters:-

For installation of these meters there are 12 No.s terminals 6 no.s for three phase power supply at Input and 6 no’s for output power supply .

Connection for three phase energy meters are as below:-

CT operated energy meter installation:-

For installation of CT operated energy meters 1^st you have to install CT’s at Input cable as per your load requirements. These energy meters can be used for measurement of consumption for any load only CT’s are required to be selected according to load. As power consumption indicated in energy meter is multiplied by CT ratio of energy meter.

Various Connection diagram for energy meter

(i)                 3 CT, 4 wire connections

(ii)               3 Wire, 2 CT connections

are as below:-

In these meters there are no output terminals as these energy meters are serving the purpose of measuring the energy consumed in circuit. CT output wires are connected at terminals provided for connections of CT’s and apart from CT connections there are three terminals provided for connections for three phase voltages.

Now after doing all connections CT ratio needed to be entered into energy meter so that energy meter reads the correct power consumption consumed in system. If you don’t enter correct CT ratio then you may not get correct results.

Now after doing all connections and programming in energy meter , energy meter starts working when power supply get charged.

There are energy meters also available where you need not enter CT ratio in energy meters instead energy consumption displayed on energy meter needed to multiplied by CT ratio to arrive at actual consumption.

There are many parameters which can be monitored through these energy meters. There are energy meters available in market which works on 2 Quadrant and 4 quadrant. 4 quadrant meters works on both lead and lag power factors i.e. energy meter reading keeps on increasing in case of lead power factor also. But on the other hand in 2 quadrant energy meters , energy meter works on lag power factor only i.e. these energy meters don’t work in lead power factor.

Single Phase preventer working and installation Procedure

Phase preventer are used in industries are having following advantages:-

1.       They uses to protect the motors and electrical systems in case of one/ two phase failure in three phase power system i.e. they can protect the system from single phasing.

2.       They protect the system in case phase sequence gets changed and phase sequence protects the system so that motors could not start operating in reverse direction.

3.       They also protect the system when voltage level falls below a particular level.

Phase preventer is also named as single phase preventer.

Installation of Phase preventer in electrical systems:-

Phase preventer consists of following:-

1.       Terminals for Three phase supply

2.       Terminals for auxiliary supply

3.       NO/ NC contact for interlocking

Connections for the relay as below:-

There are few additional settings provided on Phase preventer are:-

(i)                  Under voltage setting :- Do the Under Voltage setting to minimum

(ii)                Under voltage delay settings: Keep the Under Voltage Delay to minimum

(iii)               Unbalanced Voltage Settings:- Keep percentage Unbalanced to maximum

Now connect the three phase power supply at three terminal for three phase power supply

Now provide single auxiliary power supply at auxiliary power supply points.

Now finally connect Interlocking connections at Phase preventer so that when there is phase failure motor or required machine get tripped

Now turn ON power supply and Phase preventer get energized and if RED light on phase preventer get green then phase sequence is correct and voltage in all phases is above minimum under voltage setting.

If after energizing the Phase preventer LED light on Phase preventer glows RED then this means phase sequence needed to be changed of three phases Input supply or main supply. After changing phase sequence light made to glow green.

Also when Green light is on display of phase preventer then NO and NC will remains the same .  When phase sequence get changed then NO becomes NC and NC becomes NO so interlocking motor or machine get tripped.

Under Voltage Trip point setting:-

To protect equipment from under voltage it is always recommended to keep under voltage setting to as minimum as possible. If you don’t know the settings then adjust the under-voltage setting knob until LED starts glowing red. Now Slowly adjust the knob to setting in such a way that relay starts glowing green. Now at that setting it will ensured that voltages are under acceptable limits.

Under Voltage Delay Settings:-

The delay set in this setting is the maximum time for which under voltage can exist in system before causing tripping of motor or machine.

Settings can be done in such a way that if setting is done too low then it may cause nascence tripping in the system. If setting is done too high then it may cause damage to motor or machine and purpose of installation get defeated.

Voltage Unbalance setting:-

Voltage unbalance is another setting provided on the relay. In any system maximum allowable unbalanced voltage is not specified. But it generally acceptable to level of (+-) 5% depending upon allowable limits specified on motor or machine terminal plate.

In every system there will not be perfectly balanced voltage in system. So Unbalanced voltage setting to be done accordingly, too low settings will cause unwanted interruptions and too high settings will may cause damage to motor or machine.

Another way of doing the setting is to first adjust the knob for unbalanced voltage setting until relay starts glowing red , after that now slowly adjust the knob in such a way that LED starts glowing green.

As per NEMA %age Unbalanced Voltage= (Maximum Deviation from Average voltage/ Average Voltage)X 100

Where average voltage= (L1+L2+L3)/100

After doing all settings relay LED was glowing green.

Energy Savings with IE1, IE2 & IE3 Motors

Motors are part of every industry and commercial establishments and so it becomes very important to reduce the cost related to electricity to be reduced to as much as possible so as to increase profitability.

There are some important facts which you should must know about motors as per research done by International copper association India :-

(i)                  In industries motors usually accounts for 70% of power consumption

(ii)                In motors entire life major chunk i.e. 88% of total life cost is energy cost.

So it becomes very important to save electricity as much as possible as soon you reduce electricity bill you will save environment also.

So premium efficient motors are equally become very important as these motors has very low losses as these motor have used following for reducing losses:-

(i)                  Reduced stator copper losses as they have more active material

(ii)                Reduced iron losses by using high grade silicon steel

(iii)               Reduced friction and windage losses by using better fan design

There are following advantages of using Extra premium efficient motors over IE2 & IE3 motors:-

(i)                  Constant efficiency of motors from 60% of load to 100% of load

(ii)                Lower electricity consumption as losses are minimum , so power bill reduced

(iii)               These motors have greater ability to operate at higher temperature range.

(iv)              These motors have better thermal and electrical stresses

Indian Energy efficient Motors standard:-

Bureau of Indian standards introduced the standard for energy efficient motors in 1989 as IS:12615. This standard covers 4 pole with rating upto 37 KW.

Revision: I of IS:12615

Same was revised in 2004 to cover more motors this time standard covers :-

(i)                  2 Pole – 4 Pole Motors having rating from 0.37 KW to 160 KW

(ii)                6 Pole motors having rating from 0.37 KW to 132 KW

(iii)               8 Pole motors having rating from 0.37 KW to 110 KW

This revision also includes efficiency levels i.e. Eff1 & Eff2 and Test methodology for the same as per IEC 60034-2

Revision: II of IS:12615

In year 2011 same was again revised as Upon introduction of IEC 60034-30 for efficiency classification of induction motors and same was adopted by other countries. So in order to be in par with standard, standard was revisited and revised with following :-

(i)                  Motor range has been extended Now it will covers 2 Pole, 4 pole, 6 pole motors ranging from 0.37 KW- 375 KW.

(ii)                Motor testing standard should be IS:15999:2011 or IEC 60034-2-1

(iii)               New efficiency levels introduced: IE1, IE2 & IE3 (IEC 60034-30:2008)

(iv)              New parameters like Breakaway Torque, Current & full load current are included

How to find when to replace the motor?

There are following steps which you can follow in your industry to arrive at conclusion that whether we needed to replace motors or not:-

(i)                  Prepare database of all motors along with breakdowns in past.

(ii)                Prepare database for efficiency of motors as per motor name plate

(iii)               Takeout database of number of rewinding’s done in past.

(iv)              Checkout OEM data provided with motors about efficiency curves of motor and effects of every rewinding on motor efficiency. As per typical analysis for motors it has been found that for every rewinding there is drop in efficiency of motor form 1% to 5% for every rewinding.

From database we can also found that if motors are older than 8 to 10 years then definitely motors will be inefficient motors also over the period of time there might be rewinding of motors will be done which worse the inefficient motors.

It has been found that often repair/rewinding cost of medium and small motors (<50 KW) is often on higher side so it is often recommended to replace the same after certain period of time after complete analysis. 

After preparing all database checkout various efficient motors available in market and compare with your database. Now prepare a payback calculation sheet and you can definitely come out at some conclusion for replacement of motors.

Below cost benefit analysis of a typical 20 KW motor is done to strengthen viewpoint of replacement of medium and small size motors:-

Here loading of 80% is considered over whole year.

Running Hrs are taken as 20 Hrs per day and for whole year it will comes to be = 365 X 20 = 7300 Hrs

Annual Cost of energy for IE1 Motors= ((20* 0.8) X 7300 X 8)/ (0.887) = 1053438 Rs / Year

Annual cost of energy for IE2 Motors= (20*0.8) X 7300 X 8/ (0.906)= 1031346 Rs / year

Annual Cost of energy for IE3 Motors= (20*0.8) X 7300 X 8/ (0.921)= 1014549 Rs / year

Parameter	Standard Motor Eff2 (IE1)	Energy efficient Motor (IE2)	High Efficient Motor (IE3)
Motor KW rating	20	20	20
Efficiency	88.7%	90.60%	92.10%
% Loading	80%	80%	80%
Running Hrs /Year	7300	7300	7300
Energy Cost/ KWH	8.0	8.0	8.0
So Annual Savings comes out to be		22092	38888
Purchase price of New Motor in Rs.	45000	55000	63000
Payback period		5.4 month	5.6 Months

So from above we can see that there are huge savings in respect to energy bill with shifting from IE1 Motors to IE2 and IE3 motors.

Also there are saving even if we shift from IE2 Motors to IE3 Motors.