The Future of Cooling: Opportunities for Energy-Efficient Air Conditioning
About this book
The Future of Cooling: Opportunities for Energy-Efficient Air Conditioning, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2018, is the most comprehensive analysis available of the rapidly growing global challenge of space cooling — a challenge that intersects climate change, energy demand, energy poverty, and urban heat island effects in ways that make it one of the most significant energy policy issues of the 21st century. The report opens with a striking set of projections: the number of air conditioning units globally was approximately 1.6 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach 5.6 billion by 2050 — adding 3 billion new units in 30 years, an equivalent of roughly 10 new air conditioners every second. Driven by rising incomes in tropical and subtropical regions (India, Indonesia, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia), increasing urbanisation, and the warming climate making cooling a basic survival necessity in more locations, space cooling is the fastest-growing end-use in the global energy system.
The energy implications are examined in detail. If all additional cooling units are installed with current average efficiencies (approximately 20% below best available technology), cooling electricity demand would triple by 2050, adding approximately 4,000 TWh per year — equivalent to the entire current electricity consumption of the United States. This trajectory would require building approximately 1,300 new large coal-fired power plants globally, or the equivalent in other generation capacity.
The IEA's Efficient Cooling Scenario shows that if all air conditioning installations worldwide adopted best available technology (integrated energy efficiency ratio — IEER — improvements of approximately 30% above current average), the electricity demand growth from cooling could be reduced by approximately 45%, saving the equivalent of the total current electricity generation of the European Union by 2050. Refrigerant policy is examined alongside efficiency: the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol phases down hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants with high global warming potentials, creating an opportunity to transition to lower-GWP alternatives (R-32, R-290, R-600a, R-1234yf) simultaneously with efficiency improvements. The alignment of refrigerant transition with efficiency improvement is identified as a critical co-benefit opportunity.
The report examines urban heat island effects, passive cooling strategies (building orientation, shading, high-albedo roof surfaces, urban greenery), district cooling systems, and the potential of thermal storage to shift cooling electricity demand away from peak hours.