Key Takeaways
Set your aircon to 26°C and run a fan at the same time. It's the Ministry of Energy's recommended setting, and the fan makes the room feel cooler, so you don't need a lower setting. If 26°C feels fine, try 27°C.
Within a comfortable range, a higher setting means a lower bill. Each degree warmer means less work for the aircon, so moving from 23°C to 26°C cuts its power use by about 9–15%.
A 1,000-watt aircon uses one unit of electricity per hour, about 4.2 baht on the tariff from the September 2026 bill. Eight hours a day comes to roughly 1,000 baht a month.
A dirty or wrongly sized aircon wastes power. Regular cleaning can cut the bill by up to about 10%, a separate saving from the temperature setting.
Table of Contents
What temperature saves the most electricity?
Does aircon cleaning save electricity?
How much does an aircon cost per hour?
Other settings that cut aircon power use
The wrong aircon size wastes power
Get your aircon cleaned through gigit
1. What temperature saves the most electricity?
Set the aircon to 26°C and run a fan to move the cool air around the room. That's the figure Thailand's Ministry of Energy is asking households to use. A fan uses far less power than an aircon, and moving air makes you feel cooler without turning the thermostat down.
If you're still comfortable sitting or sleeping at 26°C, try 27°C. EGAT, Thailand's state power generator, recommends 26–27°C instead of 23–24°C and says that change alone can cut the electricity bill by up to about 10%.
2. Does aircon cleaning save electricity?
Yes. EGAT says cleaning your aircon every 6 months can cut the bill by up to about 10% (2022 data). That's a separate figure from the temperature saving above, measured on its own, so the two shouldn't simply be added together. Dust on the filter and the evaporator coil (the thin metal fins behind the filter) blocks airflow, so the aircon runs longer to cool the room and the bill goes up.
EGAT once ran a nationwide aircon cleaning project that cleaned more than 15,000 units and saved 2.26 million units of electricity, clear evidence that clean aircons use less.
You can rinse the filter yourself every two to four weeks; the steps are in how to clean your aircon at home. The coil and the fan inside are a technician's job. Homes that run the aircon every day usually need a professional clean more often than every 6 months, and how often you should clean your aircon shows the right interval for your home.
When it's due, download the gigit mobile app and post an aircon cleaning task. It only takes 2 minutes, and you'll receive offers from verified 5-star professionals in your local area.
3. How much does an aircon cost per hour?
You need two numbers: the aircon's power draw and your price per unit. An aircon drawing 1,000 watts for one hour uses 1 unit (1 kWh). Multiply that by the rate your household is paying.
From the September 2026 bill, Thailand's Energy Regulatory Commission set a new household tariff. The average across all users is 3.86 baht per unit, and the household rate is stepped, so homes with higher total monthly use pay a bit more per unit.
Here's the 12,000 BTU aircon cost per hour as a worked example. Take a fixed-speed (non-inverter) unit drawing 1,000 watts, within the 900–1,300 watts Carrier gives for this size. At about 4.2 baht per unit, one hour costs roughly 4.2 baht. Run it 8 hours a day for 30 days and it uses 240 units, roughly 1,000 baht a month.
The temperature you set changes that figure. Each degree warmer cuts the aircon's electricity use by roughly 3–5%, a figure EGAT confirmed during the Ministry of Energy's 26°C campaign. Moving from 23°C to 26°C uses about 9–15% less, which saves roughly 90–150 baht a month in this example. Real savings vary with sun, room size, and how many people are in the room.
All figures are approximate and exclude 7% VAT and the monthly service charge.
An inverter aircon slows its compressor once the room is cool, so it usually uses less than this example. The most accurate figure is the wattage on your own unit's energy label or spec sheet: divide it by 1,000 and multiply by your rate per unit.
4. Other settings that cut aircon power use
Beyond the temperature, two things help straight away and cost nothing.
Run a fan before the aircon. EGAT recommends using a fan to push hot air out of the room before you switch the aircon on, so it doesn't start from a baking-hot room.
Close doors and windows, and draw the curtains. This matters most in rooms that get afternoon sun, because every bit of sunlight is heat the aircon has to remove.
5. The wrong aircon size wastes power
An aircon that doesn't match the room wastes power: EGAT explains that an oversized unit switches on and off too often, while an undersized one runs flat out. If you're buying or replacing one, Carrier's formula for aircon size in BTU is room area (width × length in metres) × 650–700 for a room out of direct sun, or × 800–900 for a sunny room. For example, the right aircon size for room size 4 × 4 m out of the sun is about 10,400–11,200 BTU.
6. Get your aircon cleaned through gigit
A professional clean makes every degree on the remote count. A clean aircon cools the room faster and costs less to run, because air flows freely over the coil again. The technician will clean the coil, fan and drain pipe inside the unit, the parts you can't reach when you rinse the filter. You can check prices for each type of clean in how much aircon cleaning costs.
Post an aircon cleaning task on gigit, set your budget (or leave it open to offers), and choose from the offers local gigit heroes send. You pay through the Safe Payment System, backed by Kasikorn Bank.