Using more air conditioners to stay cool is spending more money

The unending hot weather in Vientiane has forced residents to use air-conditioners in their offices and homes to get a good night’s sleep.
The increased use of air-conditioners is making deep holes in everyone’s pockets, but it is impossible to imagine a life without these cooling machines as the temperatures soar and the heat becomes overbearing.

Staying cool in office through the day.

The main drivers of the increased energy consumption are clearly homes and office buildings which use air-conditioning units. When the days are particularly hot, as we are experiencing at present, air-conditioners require a lot more power, even more than usual, to cool rooms.
Some areas in Vientiane sometimes experience power cuts on days when the mercury shoots over 40 degrees Celsius and the high demand for power overloads the grid.
When the weather is hot, people use a lot more electricity in their houses, especially on air-conditioners, water coolers, fans and refrigerators.
In the past two decades, people did not care much about using air- conditioning units, but now the weather is beginning to heat up like never before and everyone wants to keep their houses and offices cool.
In Laos, especially in Vientiane, people have more spending power and even keep cars with good air-conditioning systems.
A couple who lives in Nonwai village of Xaysettha district and wanted to stay anonymous told this reporter that the weather is too hot since the past few days – touching 40 degrees Celsius.
“I was quite upset with the air-conditioning as it did not cool the room. The air from the AC seemed like that of a fan,” he said.
He said that he did not know the reason for the malfunctioning of the AC, but he thinks it is due to insufficient electricity supply from the power grid.
“Maybe if I buy a small electrical cooling appliance and run it on diesel with my air conditioner it will help cool my place better,” he said.
In fact, air-conditioners consume more energy in hot weather and on top of that they are being run non-stop – from day to night. To maintain a temperature of 25C in extreme heat is a task and the automatic switch may be rendered dysfunctional.
If the weather is not that hot, air-conditioners normally go on auto mode for around one or two minutes every five minutes once a room has cooled down.
Some households have been using their air-conditioners for many years, but have never had them serviced. This is another reason why ACs fail to cool and consume more energy than usual.
Some people were shocked to hear when I received an electricity bill for more than 500,000 kip last month.
Bills normally surge in the hot season, depending on usage, more or less. Household electricity consumption typically rises sharply when the hot weather hits the country, mostly from March to June.
This is caused by a spike in the use of fans and air-conditioners. However, power consumption will start to dip again in July when the weather begins to cool down.
This year many people in Vientiane also wondered why their electricity bills for April were so high, alarmed by a massive rise despite the obvious spike in electricity usage due to the summer heat.
People thought the electricity tariffs had risen, as some have seen their bills for April go up by three to four percent compared to their normal bills.

ByTimes Reporters
(Latest Update April 29, 2022)