Evaporative coolers, also known as swamp coolers, account for a massive 43% of daily power consumption in Iran that has already surpassed 72 gigawatts, the head of Iran Grid Management Company, an Energy Ministry subsidiary, said.
“The obsolete technology used to produce evaporative coolers belongs to at least half a century ago and has shockingly not improved since then,” Mostafa Rajabi-Mashhadi was also quoted as saying by Barq News website.
The outdated devices consume about 31,000 megawatts of power per day whereas their efficiency is much lower, he added.
He noted that the power used by the outdated Iranian evaporative coolers equals the total electricity consumption of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, the UAE and Oman.
The mercury in Tehran and other areas hit 42°C on Saturday.
Energy Labels
Commenting on defining the importance of new standards to manufacture swamp coolers, the official noted that new energy labels were unveiled in Tehran last month for swamp coolers.
“Not only will the new standards help curb power use, but they are also expected to reduce water consumption by 30%,” he said.
Also known as desert and evaporative coolers, swamp coolers can reduce energy consumption as an alternative to compressor-based cooling in arid climates.
According to the official, there are close to 20 million swamp coolers in Iran, accounting for 18 billion kilowatt hours of power and 700 million cubic meters of water used in the country per annum.
“Iranian manufacturers produce about 1 million new coolers per year and as of April, they must comply with the new standards,” he said.
Based on the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Organization’s (Satba) new rule, coolers with energy labels “E”, “F” and “G” will be replaced with new labels entitled “A+”, “A++” and “A+++”.
Giving a breakdown on the organization’s plan to curb consumption by 3 GW, Rajabi-Mashhadi noted that the production of new coolers compliant with new labels will help reduce consumption by 1,200 MW and the rest (1,800 MW) will be achieved by replacing old air-conditioning systems with new devices and substituting incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient lighting systems.
