Friday, July 24, 2009

What is SEER?

What is SEER?

Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) rates the efficiency of air conditioning units. SEER is defined by the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute in its standard ARI 210=240, Performance Rating of Unitary Air-Conditioning and Air-Source Heat Pump Equipment. The higher the SEER rating of a unit, the more energy efficient the unit. The SEER rating is the Btu of cooling output during a typical season divided by the total electric energy input in watt-hours during the same period.

For example, consider a 5000 BTU/h air-conditioning unit, with a SEER of 10, operating for a total of 1000 hours during an annual cooling season (e.g., 8 hours per day for 125 days). This section from Wikipedia.

The annual total cooling output would be:

5000 BTU/h * 8 h/day * 125 days = 5,000,000 BTU

With a SEER of 10, the annual electrical energy usage would be about:

5,000,000 BTU / 10 BTU/W·h = 500,000 W·h

The average power usage may also be calculated more simply by:

Average power = (BTU/h) / (SEER, BTU/W·h) = 5000 / 10 = 500 W

If your electricity cost is 20¢/kW·h, then your operating cost is:

0.5 kW * 20¢/kW·h = 10¢/h

No comments:

Post a Comment