Air Conditioners versus Fans Analogies

Objective

To estimate the number of fans that can be operated in neighbouring households by the energy consumed by the number of ACs in the college building.

Outcome

Students will become aware of the injustice caused by the air conditioning usage and develop perspectives of Sustainable and passive cooling design of the Buildings.

Requirements

None

Prerequisites

A conceptual knowledge of power consumption of a device.

Procedure

Step 1: Assign a task to students of finding the total number of ACs and subsequent power consumption in the college building. Assign the task to students to find the power consumption of a ceiling fan, beforehand.

Step 2:Col lectively estimate the number of ceiling fans which collectively have the same power consumption of the ACs used in college.

Sample Calculations:

Power Consumption of a 1.5 TR, 3-star split AC = 1650 W

Total no of ACs in college = 10

Total power consumption through ACs in college building = 16500 W

Power Consumption of a typical ceiling fan = 66 W

No. of fans which collectively have the same power =  Total Power consumption of AC (W)Power consumption of a fan (W)

consumption as that of an AC = 1650066

= 250 fans 

Step 3: Reflect on the findings and the injustices of consumption of power and emissions. 

References

Introduction to fairconditioning presentation: http://www.fairconditioning.org/resources/#126-module-ppts-1478947081

Source of Idea