Energy-Efficient Thermostats for Room-Level Air Conditioning

Abstract: Room-level air conditioners (also referred as ACs) consume a significant proportion of total energy in residential and small-scale commercial buildings. In a typical AC, occupants specify their comfort requirements by manually setting the desired temperature on the thermostat. Though commercial thermostats (such as Tado) provide basic energy-saving features, they neither consider the influence of external factors (such as weather) to set the thermostat temperature nor offer advanced features such as monitoring the fitness level of AC. In this paper, we discuss grey-box modeling techniques to enhance existing thermostats for energy-efficient control of the ACs and provide actionable and corrective feedback to the users. Our study indicates that the enhancements can reduce occupants' discomfort by 23% when maximising the user experience, and reduce AC energy consumption by 26% during the power-saving mode.