In 2024, extreme heat waves in India, China and the United States sparked a massive increase in the use of air conditioning devices (AC), doubling the growth in electricity demand in certain months, according to an EMPER report, an energy reflection group.
The previous year saw a substantial increase in coal (and gas in the United States) energy production to meet additional demand. 2024 was the hottest year of all time, with several waves of heat in very populated regions around the world.
Consequently, the use induced by the heat waves of air conditioning has considerably increased the demand for electricity during the summer months – August and September in China, June in the United States and in May.
Air cooling has doubled the growth in electricity demand in China in August and September 2024 during the same period last year. He was responsible for all the growth in annual shift demand in the United States in June and more than a third of the growth in annual shift in May in India.
In August and September 2024, China recorded its highest temperatures for these months in a decade. According to EMPER assessments, an increase in air cooling demand doubled the energy consumption in annual slip during this period under review. Overall, from April to September 2024, higher air conditioning needs represented 31% of the rise in electricity demand in China compared to the same period in 2023.
In the United States, the impact of heat waves was more pronounced in June 2024 with average temperatures, which increased to 23.8 ° C – the highest of the month in the last decade. Air cooling has led the full year of one year of electricity on the other this month in the greatest economy in the world.
Researchers in ESAGE also thought that demand in the country would have dropped by 1.3% in June, but air cooling needs would have increased 9.4% instead. The demand for electricity in the United States – from April to September 2024, compared to the same period in 2023 – jumped 37% for the same reason.
May 2024 was the warmest in India, with temperatures on average of 31.7 ° C – an increase of 1 ° C compared to May 2023. The air conditioning led almost a third of the increase in demand in annual slip this month and led to 19% of the growth in demand from April to September 2024.
The peak of electricity demand in India was less pronounced than in the United States and China, probably due to unsatisfied air cooling needs and strong economic growth stimulating the demand of other sectors.
While temperatures soared, contracting the network, the three countries turned to the production of coal electricity, while the United States also relied on the gas to relieve the pressure.
The hottest months have led most of the annual overvoltage of electricity production to China coal, with 59% of the 2024 increase recorded in August and September.
While clean energy met two-thirds of the growth in June’s demand in the United States, the rest was provided by fossil fuels, including gas and coal. During this month, the generation of coal increased 6.4% in annual sliding and 4.6% in annual sliding, significantly higher than annual annual growth of 2024.
In India, clean energy has completed 19% of the increase in energy demand in May, while coal reached 70% and gas covered the rest.
As climate change progresses, mainly driven by the combustion of fossil fuels, scientists expect thermal waves to become more frequent and more intense, affecting many countries.
Combined with the growing use of air conditioning – especially in the world South, where rapid urbanization and extreme heat lead to an increase in air cooling property – the demand for electricity is even further.
Encouraging the sale of more energy efficient air conditioners, promoting solarization and improving retail prices can allow households and businesses to generate cheaper and cleaner power and help reduce pressure on networks during heat waves.
Allowing these overvoltages to respond to coal and gas production will increase carbon emissions.
Kostantsa Rangelova, an electricity analyst at EMEM, said: “2024 was the hottest year ever recorded, the heat waves causing massive peaks in demand – and the pressure will only grow as the planet warms up.
The solution is double: increase the effective adoption of air conditioning to reduce costs and facilitate advanced demand, and invest in clean and flexible power to maintain resilient grids while extreme weather conditions are intensifying. The crisis is accelerating – Our answer must also. »»
EMBER is an independent energy reflection group which aims to accelerate the transition of clean energy with data and politics. It creates information on targeted data to advance policies that urgently move the world to an electrified and clean energy future.