How Much Electricity Does An Air Conditioner Use Per Hour?

How much electricity our air conditioner uses per hour is easy to calculate. Let’s assume that the data tag on our air conditioner says that the unit is a 5000 BTUh device with a SEER rating of 10. This means our A/C unit will produce 5000 BTUs of cooling in an hour of running. Since SEER=10 means that 10 BTUs used per Wh, then

5000 BTUh / 10 SEER = 500 Watts per hour that our A/C unit will use.

How Much Electricity Does An Air Conditioner Use in one Cooling Season?

A common example we use (because the math is easy) is to assume we have 125 days of cooling season during which we run the air conditioner for eight hours per day.

8 x 125 = 1000 hours of cooling operation over a season

500 Wh (watts used per hour) x 1000 (hours per season) = 500,000 Wh per season

So we are using 500,000 Watt Hours of energy (electricity) per cooling season. We divide this by 1000 to convert to Kilowatts since that’s how our electrical bill will express our electricity usage.

500,000 Wh / 1000 = 500 kWh or kilowatt hours per season of use
That’s how much electricity we’re using over the cooling season.

Definition of Low Side in an Air Conditioning System refers to the components on the low-temperature and low-pressure side of the compressor unit. In an air conditioner, the low side includes the suction or intake side of the compressor unit, suction piping connected to the evaporator coil, the evaporator or cooling coil, and the output-end of the metering device or TEV.

Definition of High Side in an Air Conditioning System refers to the components on the high-temperature (above ambient air temperature) and high pressure side of the compressor unit. In an air conditioner in cooling mode these include the output or high pressure side of the compressor unit, the high pressure gas refrigerant line connected to the condensing coil, the condensing coil itself, and the inlet side of the metering device located near the evaporator coil.

These parts are named and illustrated at AIR CONDITIONINED AND HEATING PUMP SYSTEMS and at COMPRESSOR PRESSURE READINGS we discuss air conditioner system high side and low side further.

At operating cost, we determine the actual dollar cost of running an air conditioner either by the hour of by the season of use. It’s easy to get from that data to actual air conditioning operating costs in dollars.