Why does it take so much electrical power to run an air conditioner?

Could "start-stop" technology used in cars be deployed to reduce electrical usage?

no. the big energy draw in air conditioning is the compressing of the gas - compress gas to a liquid, remove the heat of compression, then let the freon evaporate inside the house to make things cooler. everything else in comparison is quite inexpensive.

Northwest · M

@stound Freon is no longer used, too dangerous to handle, and damages the ozone. The refrigerant gas is not released inside the house, it's circulated back into the compressor. It's an enclosed system. Air is run over the coils, where it's cooled, and circulated back into the home.

Northwest · M

Yes, it's called a smart thermostat. The biggest problem with the home, is that hundreds of times more air must be cooled, compared to a car. Compressing the gas used a refrigerant, to turn it into a liquid, requires a significant amount of power.

CharlieZ · 70-79, M

First question: Cos of entropy, whatever generates or transfer heat (and to make something colder is to heat something else) haves a relative high energy cost.