Energy efficient acs, anyone?

I like this ad by Voltas - it reminds me of my parents who installed 3 air conditioners when they shifted to a new house last year... but rarely use them.

Not that they are kanjoos but force of habit. Feeling that bill zyada aayega. Whereas my daughter, who has been sleeping in a/c practically since birth would have no second thoughts. And I, the in-between generation am somewhere in between. I do use the a/c without stressing about the bill but get an uneasy feeling about leaving it on for hours and hours.

The question I have however is: how much less energy does a Voltas a/c consume? And what impact does that have on your bill?

After all the manufacturer can claim anything. There is no independent third party I am aware of which certifies which a/cs are more efficient.

I own two Videocon split a/cs, my parents have Samsung and in the office we have Godrej installed. But who keeps track of how many hours which machine is used and co relates that with the bill? Also I guess it depends how hot it is and in Mumbai humidity is also a factor.

Incidentally, the Voltas type energy efficent a/cs are priced higher than other brands and hence it becomes all the more important to know what is the savings you get out of it.

Anyone who has done the research on this (or has the technical knowledge!) please do share!

P.S. For reasons I cannot fathom, the video refused to show when the embed code was pasted in blogger! So I have given a link wonly.

Update: Thanks to Sudhir for info on the Bureau of Energy Efficiency in India. I did look up the link and what do Ifind? Voltas has 10 models
in split acs of which ONE is rated 5 star and two are rated 4 star. There are 4 room acs, all of which are rated 2 star ( very low)

So in effect the ad is misleading. In fact the voice over states that yeh Voltas ka star rated ac hai - which is technically correct but not a big achievement. It's the number of stars that matters. And there is no fine print mentioning specific model nos.

The point is not misleading advertising alone. But when we as consumers buy these products thinking they are more green and/or more cost efficient we should be able to TRUST the manufacturer. This is not what we expect from the House of Tatas.

As for the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, it's not much help because what exactly does 1 star. 2 star etc convey to an ordinary layperson? The cooling capacity divided by power consumption is a meaningless ratio unless an illustrative example is provided. ie If I use all these air conditioners for 2 hours a day at 36 degrees outside temperature - how much energy do they consume.

Then I can figure out if it's worth paying more in the short run to save more in the long run.

Obviously the Energy Efficiency bureau is run by engineers - they need a communication expert!