Air Conditioning Has a Big Climate Impact which Could be a Game Changer
This article was authored by a 3rd party not related to PlanetVoters.com and any opinions or views expressed are not a reflection of PlanetVoters.com.
BY SARAH SAX AND VIDEO BY ANDREW. D JOHNSON
APRIL 16, 2024
Last September, the Western U.S. was hit with a 10-day heat wave that broke temperature records across the region, including in California. Air conditioning surged and with it, a record demand in electricity that brought the state’s grid to its brink. Experts feared that the California Independent System Operator, CAISO, which runs 80% of the state’s electric system, would be forced to resort to rolling blackouts—with potentially life-threatening consequences. Instead, California managed to barely avoid that scenario by pleading with commercial and residential electricity users to cut their demand and relying on large-scale battery storage.
Extreme heat waves like this will continue to test the limits of the country’s electricity grid—posing both a threat to our energy systems and increasing our reliance on fossil fuels to meet demand. Buildings are the single largest energy-consuming sector in the U.S. They use 39% of the nation’s total energy and 74% of its electricity. On average, air conditioners and electric fans account for approximately 20% of a building’s total energy consumption. But with climate change, that is set to increase. Cooling is the fastest growing use of energy in buildings, with some estimates suggesting that energy demand for space cooling will more than triple worldwide by 2050—consuming as much electricity as China and India combined do today.
To read the full article, click here:
https://time.com/collection/time-co2-futures/6767962/thermal-storage-climate-air-conditioning
