Air conditioners performance using soft starter

In almost all over the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the hot and humid environment persists using air conditioners from four to six months annually. And the Air Conditioner (AC) could represent 80% of the residential electrical load. The AC compressor is switching ON and OFF several times a day and the compressor start up causes a very high starting inrush current associated with a voltage dip. The objective of this thesis is to study the starting performance of the compressor induction motor and to design a soft starting scheme in order to reduce the inrush current and consequently improving the voltage dip. A soft starter circuit was designed to be integrated with the induction motor, which drive the compressor. Then two different firing circuits were designed and implemented for the soft starter. An experimental investigation was then conducted to validate the relevant simulation results.; The analysis of the simulation and the experimental investigation show a reduction of 30% of the inrush current and 20% improvement in the voltage dip at the compressor start up when the suggested designed model was used without compromising the starting torque pulsation. The presented soft starter would be cost effective and could easily be contained within the residential air conditioner unit frame.