Introduction
Two massive power blackouts occurring on consecutive days last summer in India have highlighted the difficulties developing nations face when vulnerable power grids are taxed by the growing use of air conditioners.
One factor in the blackouts is a weak monsoon season in India, which resulted in below-normal water levels at some hydroelectric dams and less electricity to go around. Escalating consumer demand for air conditioners likewise may be implicated. Catherine Wolfram, co-director of the Energy Institute at Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, points to data showing that the increase in energy demand between the hottest and coldest months of the year among the 16 million residents of Delhi, India, more than doubled between 2000 and 2009. In a 2012 essay on this research she concluded, "A large part of the explanation for this is that air conditioner sales have increased dramatically."
The developing world is home to most of the world's hottest and fastest-growing cities—38 of the world's 50 largest cities are in developing countries, and most of the 30 warmest of these cities are in developing countries. These countries also have a rapidly expanding middle class that can now afford the amenities that citizens in the developed world have long taken for granted. High on that list is the air conditioner.
India and other nations in South Asia and Southeast Asia are on track to record the world's biggest increases in demand for air conditioning. Sales of air conditioners in India rose an estimated 17% over the past three years, with sales rising fastest among residential users. Michael Sivak, a research professor at the University of Michigan, estimated the potential demand for cooling in Mumbai alone at about 24% of the entire U.S. demand.
Mohammad Arif Kamal, an assistant architecture professor at Aligarh Muslim University, explains that air conditioning has become de rigueur in India. "Air conditioning has become a social and status symbol," he says. "People are discarding their old, traditional homes made of bricks, mud, adobe, timber, bamboo, etc., in exchange for boxes made of concrete and glass in pursuit of modernization, which consumes a lot of operational energy."
China, on the other hand, is likely to surpass the United States as the biggest user of electricity for air conditioning by 2020, according to Cox. Michael A. McNeil, a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has looked at global air-conditioning use and found that air-conditioner ownership in warm-climate countries grows more rapidly than does economic growth. And if China is any example, he contended in a 2008 article, the adoption of air conditioning in developing countries could be rapid and vast: In 1990, fewer than 1% of Chinese households owned air conditioners, but by 2003, he reported, that number had increased to 62%.
(Enlarge Image)
The jaali (inset) is an ornamental perforated screen that filters sunlight and reduces solar heat gain. This design element, prevalent in Indian and Middle Eastern architecture, is seen here at the Tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti (top), built in the late 1500s in the city of Fatehpur Sikri, India, and at Pearl Academy (bottom).
More recently, figures from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics indicate that in 2011 Chinese consumers bought roughly 110 air conditioners per 100 urban households and roughly 18 units per 100 rural households. Stan Cox, senior research scientist at the nonprofit Land Institute and author of the 2010 book Losing Our Cool, predicts that China will surpass the United States as the biggest user of electricity for air conditioning by 2020. According to his "very rough" estimates, total world air conditioning use currently consumes about 1 trillion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually—more than twice the total energy consumption of the continent of Africa for all purposes, he says—and could expand tenfold by 2050. "Of the trillion kWh, approximately half is consumed currently by the United States, but the great bulk of the projected tenfold increase will be in Asia," Cox predicts.