The Demand.ninja model, created by researchers at Imperial College London and TU Delft, was designed to show how the weather influences hourly energy consumption in buildings. It can also account for changes in demand as the climate changes, including the increase in cooling demand in the summer as heatwaves become more common and more intense.
Countries like the UK are traditionally unprepared for extreme heat. Events like 2022’s 40°C heatwave caused sales of air conditioning (AC) units to skyrocket – a trend that is likely to accelerate as heatwaves become more frequent. Rising demand for cooling is a lose-lose for homeowners and the climate as ACs increase electricity consumption leading to higher energy bills and greater emissions.
The USA, which has much hotter summers and more widespread AC infrastructure, is now consuming an additional 66 TWh of electricity per year for air conditioning than it did just a generation ago due to rising summer temperatures – more than the entire electricity demand of Switzerland.
Read more at: Imperial College London