Space Cooling

Countries and regions making notable progress in this sector include: 

• Cambodia and South Africa launched their National Cooling Action Plans in early 2023.  
• India launched new energy efficiency policies for table, pedestal and wall-mounted fans in March 2023. 
• The United States finalised new energy efficiency standards for room air conditioners and portable air cleaners in March 2023. In mid 2022, in response to record-breaking temperatures, the White House put together a fact sheet listing ten ways the administration is taking action, including measures such as lowering cooling costs for families, supporting community cooling centres and developing the first national heat standard to protect workers. 
• China’s 2022 update of Minimum Energy Performance Standards for room air conditioners (ACs) allows for a transition from fixed-speed ACs to the more efficient variable-speed models. 
• In 2022 the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol, which regulates the use of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, was ratified or accepted by 17 additional parties including Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Venezuela and Brazil. In early 2023, Bahamas, Korea and Eritrea also ratified the protocol, bringing the total to 149 countries.
  

Although the performance of cooling equipment is continually improving and electricity production is becoming less carbon-intensive, indirect CO₂ emissions from space cooling are increasing rapidly, nearly tripling from 1990 to just over 1 Gt CO₂ in 2022. Emissions were more than 2% higher in 2022 than in 2021. 

In the NZE Scenario, indirect CO₂ emissions associated with space cooling demand by 2030 fall to around 40% of today's level. Emissions intensity per air-conditioning unit has decreased over the last decade, but reductions need to be three times faster through to 2030. 

Space cooling also leads to additional non-CO₂ greenhouse gases associated with the leakage of refrigerants. These refrigerants have a global warming potential (GWP) of up to thousands of times higher than CO₂. 

Energy demand for space cooling has risen at an average of about 4% per year since 2000, twice as quickly as for water heating. The number of residential units in operation has tripled since 2000, reaching more than 1.5 billion in 2022. Higher energy consumption for space cooling particularly affects peak electricity demand, especially during hot days, meaning power outages might occur. 

The global average efficiency of air conditioners purchased by consumers has improved steadily in recent years. However, the units with the highest efficiency in some markets can be twice as efficient as the average unit sold – often at comparable prices. Without a move towards the best available products, and improvements in the performance of the buildings in which they operate, electricity demand for space cooling in buildings could increase by as much as 40% globally by 2030. 

To get on track with the NZE Scenario, the average efficiency rating of new air-conditioning equipment would need to approach best available by 2035. 

Building floor area has increased by about 60% in the past two decades and is set to increase by another 20% over this decade, adding a total floor surface area of nearly 45 billion m², a surface equivalent to about five times the floor area in Indonesia today. More than half of these additions are in regions with hot climates that need space cooling and which lack building energy codes covering the entire building sector. This, coupled with rising temperature and improvements in living standards, is expected to increase air-conditioner ownership from 37% of the global population today to more than 45% in 2030. 

Heatwaves and other extreme weather events are increasingly frequent and severe. In 2022 record-breaking temperatures were seen in Japan, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, China, North America, South America, and Australia.  

Despite deployment increasing globally, the penetration of space cooling solutions and air-conditioning equipment is not equally distributed across the globe. In particular, the people most in need of space cooling are often those with least access to solutions. For example, only around 5% of households in sub-Saharan Africa are equipped with an air-conditioning unit, fewer than 20% in India¹ and Indonesia, and around 30% in Mexico and Brazil. This compares with more than 85% in Japan, Korea and the United States.  

Lack of access to indoor cooling puts much of the global population at high risk for heat stress. Between 2002-2004 and 2019-2021, the average annual number of heat-related deaths among people aged 65 years or older increased by about 60%, reaching an estimated 300 000 or more deaths.  

¹ 24% of households owns an air conditioner or an air cooler, https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR375/FR375.pdf

Advanced vapour compression cycles have improved design by integrating refrigerant control systems, sensors and renewable energy sources, and by combining the technology with others (membranes, evaporative cooling). In addition, they operate with low-GWP refrigerants (for an example, see the Global Cooling Prize). Demand response and automated controls also enable flexibility and the exploitation of cross-service synergies, such as recovering waste heat from cooling to heat water or, in the case of considerable loads, integrating the recovered heat into district energy networks. Achieving the best available energy efficiency during partial-load operation is another important area of ongoing research. Innovations towards refrigerant-free units or solid-state cooling units are also emerging.  

Different initiatives are in place to support the development of innovative cooling solutions, such as the Ashden Awards,  the Beat the Heat: Nature for Cool Cities Challenge, and the 10X Prize. 

The need for air conditioning can be reduced through promoting the expansion and strategic placement of vegetation, water sources, green roofs and facades, high-albedo (i.e. high ability to reflect the sun’s rays) streets and sidewalks. 

Integrating renewable cooling technologies and storage solutions is also garnering more attention, particularly in countries where the national electricity grid needs to be protected from overload, such as in China and India. In particular, solar thermal cooling systems and solar PV cooling can mitigate cooling peak load from residential and commercial buildings. Large storage capacities can be achieved in district cooling systems, which can be an affordable solution to providing electricity grid flexibility in warm areas with high building density and free source/waste heat availability. This is still a developing sector, but in recent years significant progress has been made in certain countries, such as China and Europe. 

More than 90 countries had building energy codes in force in 2022. Codes are principally lacking in emerging and developing markets – typically in regions with high cooling needs.  

More than 90 countries already have Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for air conditioners and more 95 countries have labelling policies in place. MEPS and labelling now cover more than 86% of global space cooling energy consumption in the residential sector. For MEPS, significant progresses has been made compared to the two-thirds in 2010.  

The need to step up sustainable cooling efforts is more important then ever and cooling will feature prominently at COP28. Among the most important examples of international collaboration on sustainable cooling solutions from recent years are: 

• In 2023, the Cool Coalition, with the United Arab Emirates’ incoming presidency of COP28, announced the development of a Global Cooling Pledge and a “Cool COP Menu of Actions”, to enable fairer access to cooling services while paving the way for sustainable cooling solutions.  
• In 2022, the Clean Cooling Collaborative (Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program from 2017-2021) received USD 25 million from the IKEA Foundation to advance solutions for efficient, climate-friendly cooling over the coming years. 
• The Green Cooling Initiative has implemented more than 240 projects in emerging and developing markets since 1995. 
• Since 2017 the Cooling for All programme has advocated greater action on access to sustainable cooling, and generated evidence, partnerships, policy and tools to accelerate that action. 
• The Cool Capital Stack was announced in 2022, with an investment pipeline of USD 750 million dedicated to projects and technologies to protect people, communities and local economies from climate-driven extreme heat. 
• Funding of EUR 220 million was approved for the Programme for Energy Efficiency in Buildings (PEEB) Cool in 2022 to boost energy-efficient buildings that are adapted to the effects of rising temperatures across 11 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. 
  

The focus for initiatives includes: 

• Business models such as cooling as a service and on-bill or on-wage finance are helping deliver the most efficient options to consumers, reducing the price of energy-efficient products or financing the full cost. 
• Sharing best practices: in France, Construction21 is a project that enables professionals in the building construction sector to share best practices in the construction of sustainable buildings. 
• Equipment testing: the French CETIAT laboratory provides testing equipment for buildings and helps manufacturers to reach optimal design for system efficiency.