Austin, Texas, is promoting an appliance rebate programme to encourage replacing existing low-efficiency residential air conditioners with smaller, high-efficiency units. This project was undertaken to evaluate the effect of these replacements on peak electrical demand and annual electric energy consumption and to provide the US Department of Energy (DOE) with additional data for a retrofit performance data base. Fourteen houses were monitored in a before-after experiment. Relationships between air conditioner energy consumption data and weather conditions were developed to compare pre- and post-replacement data. Results indicate both aggregate consumptions and demand reductions of about 40% due to the air conditioner replacements.

KEYWORDS: unit air conditioners, replacing, efficiency, domestic, calculating, electricity consumption, peak load, modernising, performance, databases, housing, monitoring, weather, comparing, USA.