![]() ![]() There are also clear ways to ease the electricity loads required for cooling buildings, including adding insulation, sealing air leaks, installing window coverings or films, and applying reflective colors or materials on rooftops. (The world emitted nearly 37 billion tons total last year, according to the Global Carbon Project.) But under a 2016 amendment to the Montreal Protocol, companies and countries must increasingly shift to options with lower warming impacts, such as a class of promising compounds known as HFOs, certain hydrocarbons like propane, and even carbon dioxide (which at least has less of a warming effect than existing refrigerants).Īlternative refrigerants could reduce emissions by the equivalent of around 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the coming decades, according to the high-end estimate from a Project Drawdown analysis. Manufacturers have largely relied on hydrofluorocarbons, which are highly potent greenhouse gases that can leak out during manufacturing and repair or at the end of a unit’s life. The world can also cut the direct emissions from AC by switching to alternative refrigerants, the critical compounds within cooling devices that absorb heat from the air. That entails adding sensors, control systems, and software that can automatically reduce usage as outdoor temperatures decline, when people leave spaces for extended periods, or when demand starts to bump up against available generation. In addition, developing increasingly smart grids could help electricity systems deal with the peak-demand strains of AC. Transitioning the electricity grid as a whole to greater use of clean energy sources, like solar and wind, will steadily reduce the indirect greenhouse-gas emissions from the energy used to power air-conditioning units. The most crucial fix needs to occur outside the AC industry. Notably, the IEA projects that India will install another 1.1 billion units by 2050, driving up AC’s share of the nation’s peak electricity demand from 10% to 45%. The world will see far larger increases in AC demand in nations where the middle class is rapidly expanding and where heatwaves will become more common and severe. That adds up to about 6.5 additional gigawatts that grid operators would need to be able to bring online at once, or the instant output of nearly 20 million 300-watt solar panels on a sunny day.Īnd that’s just for one of California’s 58 counties. In Los Angeles County, rising temperatures combined with population growth could crank up electricity demand during peak summertime hours as much as 51% by 2060 under a high-emissions scenario, according to a 2019 Applied Energy study by researchers at Arizona State and the University of California, Los Angeles. That means we need to overbuild electricity systems to meet levels of demand that may occur only for a few hours of a few days a year. It’s also that they'll particularly boost the amount that’s needed during peak times, when temperatures are really roasting and everyone’s cranking up their AC at the same time. The problem isn’t merely that more air conditioners will require ever more electricity to power them. ![]() Perpetually cooling the vast volumes of hot air that fill homes, offices, and factories is, and always will be, a massive guzzler of energy. ![]() It means nations don’t just need to overhaul existing electricity infrastructure they have to build far larger systems than have ever existed-and do it all with carbon-free sources. That will complicate the already staggering task of cleaning up the world’s power sectors. Treau is one of a number of startups and research groups now trying various ways to achieve similar advances for cooling.īut even if the global stock of AC units do become much more efficient, the projected leaps in usage are so large that global electricity demand will still soar. There have been far larger improvements in costs and performance across other energy technologies in recent decades-like solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles-driven by public policies, dedicated research efforts and growing demand for cleaner alternatives. “The fact that window AC use continues to increase while the product largely looks and works the same as it has for decades speaks for itself,” says Vince Romanin, chief executive of San Francisco–based Treau, a stealth cooling startup developing a novel type of heat pump. “I think a lot of folks are excited for something new here, but there has only been incremental progress.”
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