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Some two-and-a-half billion air conditioners exist already world wide – like right here, on a constructing in China.
Pixabay
Air conditioning helps us deal with more and more intense and frequent heatwaves. However, the increase in dwelling air conditioners in Switzerland and world wide has an impression on the local weather and electrical energy consumption.
In winter, when it’s chilly, it’s regular to activate the radiators or put wooden within the hearth. No one disputes the necessity to regulate the temperature in properties, though heating techniques are a major source of CO2 emissionsExternal link. However, when the warmth turns into oppressive, making certain consolation indoors is extra of a debate.
With the rise in heatwaves as a consequence of local weather change, extra persons are turning to air-con. The demand for air conditioners is growing exponentiallyExternal link in hotter climates in Asia and the Middle East, and in addition in additional temperate areas in Switzerland and Europe.
Air conditioning has been discovered to enhance the standard of sleep throughout sizzling summer time nights. It helps keep focus in faculties and productiveness in places of work throughout heatwaves. It may even save lives: in 2019, air conditioners prevented practically 200,000 untimely heat-related deaths worldwide, in accordance with a reportExternal link within the Lancet journal.
How can summers within the metropolis be made much less suffocating? An skilled from the ETH Zurich explains:
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However, air-con is controversial due to its local weather impression and excessive electrical energy consumption. Its use has more and more develop into a political subject.
Massive reliance on air-con is a “bad solution” as a result of it exacerbates the local weather disaster, the French authorities stated, reacting to a latest proposal to install air conditioners in all public buildingsExternal link. Air conditioning additionally agitates the political world in SwitzerlandExternal link, the place some cantons restrict its use.
Is air-con a superfluous luxurious or is it a significant necessity as temperatures rise? Here are solutions to 5 questions on air-con.
Some 20,000 cut up air-conditioners are put in annually in Switzerland.
Keystone / Gaetan Bally
What is the impression of air-con on the local weather?
Air conditioners comprise refrigerant gases, similar to hydrofluorocarbons. When launched into the environment, these gases contribute to the greenhouse impact and thus to the local weather disaster.
R-32, an artificial fuel used for years in air-con, has about 675 instances the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO2). Refrigerant gases can leak throughout operation or disposal of air conditioners.
These direct emissions are compounded by oblique emissions associated to electrical energy consumption.
More than half of the world’s electrical energy comes from fossil sources (coal and fuel), which launch massive quantities of CO2. Overall, air conditioners are answerable for greater than 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissionsExternal link. The local weather impression is just like that of aviation.
“You can use an air conditioner in your home and have a clear conscience”
Stefan Reimann, Empa
International treaties such because the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol intention to cut back the consumption of hydrofluorocarbons. More sustainable alternate options are gases with much less impression on the ozone layer and local weather. New era air conditioners use gases similar to butane or propane, which, whereas flammable, have a smaller impact on world warming.
“Today, if you use such a refrigerant, you can use an air conditioner in your home and have a clear conscience,” says Stefan Reimann of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), cited by the Tages-AnzeigerExternal link newspaper.
However, air conditioners, together with new fashions, nonetheless impact the native local weather. The warmth they launch outdoors contributes to warming the encompassing atmosphere, exacerbating the warmth island phenomenon within the metropolis.
How a lot electrical energy does it take to run the world’s air conditioners?
A family air conditioner makes use of between 3 and seven kilowatt hours of electrical energy per day. That’s 5 instances the consumption of 1 washing cycle of a contemporary dishwasher, says Cordin Arpagaus, a researcher on the University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland.
Artificially cooling areas consumes 7% of the world’s electrical energy (2022 determine), in accordance with the International Energy Agency (IEA). Compared to 2000, the electrical energy consumption of air-conditioning techniques, and to a lesser extent followers, has greater than doubled.
World electrical energy consumption for air-con will triple by 2050, the IEA predictsExternal link. In the long run, air conditioners worldwide will use as a lot electrical energy as China consumed in all of 2018.
In locations the place older buildings wouldn’t have air-con put in, many individuals are shopping for moveable air conditioners. However, these devour extra electrical energy to realize the identical cooling impact.
A big sufficient increase in air conditioners might overload an influence grid. The threat of a blackout will not be dominated out, as proven by episodes in early July in Florence, Bergamo and other Italian citiesExternal link.
But with sure laws, air conditioners might additionally contribute to grid stability.
A pilot projectExternal link examined distant management of air conditioners in a gaggle of personal properties in Austin, Texas, within the US. From 2019 to 2023, researchers turned down air conditioners in properties when the grid confronted the best demand. The indoor temperature in properties collaborating within the experiment assorted by lower than one diploma Celsius (1.6 levels Fahrenheit) from that set by householders, and the grid remained steady.
“Air conditioners could play a significant role in increasing flexibility of the grid. And this is without compromising comfort in homes,” says Johanna Mathieu, a professor {of electrical} engineering and pc science on the University of Michigan who led the experiment.
Which nations have essentially the most air conditioners?
More than 2.5 billion air conditioners are in operation worldwide, in accordance with IEA estimates. Most are within the United States, Japan, South Korea, and particularly China, the place the unfold of air-con has exploded since 2010.
About one in three properties on the planet (36%) is provided with an air-conditioning system, in accordance with the IEA. The share is anticipated to rise to 60% in 2050.
The improve might be particularly pronounced in India, the place air-con is anticipated to extend tenfold within the subsequent decade. Mexico, Brazil and the Middle East may also see sturdy development, whereas the development in Europe will doubtless be extra subdued.
Demand for air-con is anticipated to extend not solely due to local weather change, but additionally due to rising incomes, saysExternal link Hannah Ritchie, information scientist and researcher on the University of Oxford’s Global Development Programme.
If folks dwelling in extraordinarily sizzling nations like India or Indonesia might afford an air conditioner, they’d have already got one, she says: “This will happen over the next few decades as incomes grow in many low- and middle-income countries.”
In the US, about 90% of properties have air conditioners. By distinction, the proportion within the European Union was 20% in 2019, with larger percentages in Italy, Greece and Spain (between 50 and 60%), in accordance with essentially the most up-to-date information from the European Environment Agency.
As for Switzerland, there aren’t any official figures. It is estimated that solely 5% of properties are air-conditioned.
Why are air-conditioned properties in Switzerland uncommon?
The most quick reply is as a result of air conditioners usually are not important. In Switzerland, summers usually are not as scorching and temperatures not as excessive as they’re in Mediterranean or Middle Eastern nations.
But warmth waves are typically extra frequent and extended. And Switzerland is likely one of the nations most affected by local weather change. The want for cooling properties is rising, and low-cost moveable air conditioners are promoting nicely: final June, Swiss on-line retailer Galaxus offered thrice as many models as in June 2024. M
The melting of glaciers is one purpose why temperartures in Switzerland are climbing quicker than elsewhere:
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Sales of stationary air conditioners are additionally rising, albeit rather more slowly. About 20,000 such models are put in in properties and places of work annually.
Unlike moveable fashions, which might be bought freely, stationary air conditioners should meet power and constructing necessities. Currently, cantonal authorities allow solely these with a most output of 12 watts per sq. meter.
Restrictions might be even stricter. In Zurich, those that need such a system should first adequately insulate the rooms and have a sun-protection system (similar to computerized shutters or awnings). In the canton of Fribourg, solely those that have photo voltaic panels on their roofs can set up a cut up air conditioner.
For Marco von Wyl, director of the Swiss Association of Manufacturers and Suppliers of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems, the limitation of cooling energy is the primary impediment to their set up in Switzerland. Many present buildings, he says, are minimize off.
What are the alternate options to air-con?
To keep cool with out resorting to air-con, it’s important to stop the solar’s rays from penetrating the inside of buildings, particularly by home windows. Exterior blinds, sunshades and white shutters supply efficient safety.
For Jean-Christophe Hadorn, researcher and power marketing consultant, the long run is in followers. On common they devour 20 instances much less electrical energy than air conditioners and nonetheless supply some aid. “Soon we will find fans in every home,” he says.
At the city stage, vegetation, our bodies of water and better permeability of the soil scale back ambient temperatures, and consequently in buildings. Some cities, similar to Geneva, use lake water to chill buildings by a community of underground pipes.
Air conditioning will not be a silver bullet. But we’ve to simply accept that the demand for cooling will develop, reckons Hannah Ritchie. Air conditioning should be mixed with different options that make cities and buildings cooler, she says – “especially if we want to protect those who work outdoors and the poorest who can’t afford it.”
Edited by Gabe Bullard/vm
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