The temperature of new air-conditioners in India will be standardised not to go below 20 degrees Celsius and above 28 degrees Celsius, announced Union Minister of Power Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday.

The minister said that this “new experiment” of temperature standardisation would be implemented in all sectors, including vehicles, amid rising temperatures due to climate change and increasing use of cooling systems, Deccan Herald reported.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency, a statutory body under the Ministry of Power, has estimated that increasing an air-conditioner temperature setting by just 1 degree Celsius can reduce electricity usage by up to 6%, The Hindu reported.

The revised temperature limits were part of a broader policy framework aimed at boosting energy efficiency in both commercial and residential sectors, as well as reducing electricity bills, said Khattar.

He did not specify when the new mandate would come into effect.

Several models of air conditioners permit users to set temperatures as low as 16 degrees Celsius or as high as 30 degrees Celsius. The limits proposed by the Union government will override these options once they come into force.

According to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, if air-conditioners are set at 24 degrees Celsius, up to 20 billion units of electricity could be saved annually. Financial savings could also touch Rs 10,000 crore in the country and carbon emissions could drop by 8.2 million tonnes per year.