As the recent Energy White Paper and Senate Committee report confirm, Australia’s electricity prices are going up. The Productivity Commission states that they have risen by 50% in real terms over the last five years, mainly due to the rising cost of poles and wires. In fact, around one quarter of retail electricity bills go towards meeting around 40 hours of critical peak demand each year.
So what are we doing during these 40 hours?
It is no coincidence that the penetration of domestic air-conditioners has almost doubled in a decade: over 70% of us have one. Many Australians (at least in the southern states) still reserve the use of their air-conditioners for those very hot (or cold) days of the year — some 40 hours in total — when temperatures soar (or plummet). Air-conditioning use at these times creates much of the peak load that costly infrastructure is being built to cope with.
There is no denying that it gets hot in Australia. Temperatures can exceed 40 degrees Celsius for several days in a row.
How then did Australians manage without air conditioning? Climate change might be causing more extreme temperatures and heat waves, but this alone doesn’t explain why, in a little over a decade, cooling an entire home has become the normal and necessary thing to do.
Australia’s situation is not unique. In many developed and developing nations around the world, air-conditioning is making its way into more and more homes and workplaces. Even countries like the UK are increasingly embracing the air-conditioner, despite being considered cold in comparison to Australia.
Policy makers are well aware of the financial and environmental costs of this recent and rapid spread of air-conditioning, and have focused their attention on improving the efficiency of air-conditioners and Australia’s housing stock, and delivering behaviour change initiatives that ask householders to turn their thermostats up (or down).
However, trends such as open-plan designs, the increasing size of residential floor space, central cooling installations, and changing house designs have often outweighed efficiency and behavioural improvements.
As prices continue to rise and pressure to act on climate change becomes paramount, it is a good time for policy makers to ask if the trend towards air-conditioning indoor spaces is necessary, desirable or even possible. Taking these questions seriously, where might we look for inspiration and alternatives?
Our research, respectively conducted in Australia and the UK, is asking those very questions. In Australia we have looked at alternatives, such as cooling bodies rather than the environments they inhabit, and turning public facilities, such as libraries and community spaces, into “cooling centres” during heat waves.
We have also studied and reviewed responses to dynamic peak pricing and rebates, where households are provided with an incentive or disincentive to reduce electricity during a four-hour peak period. In these situations the malleability of cooling practices is revealed, as householders turn to a range of other methods of cooling their homes and bodies.
In the UK we have found that air-conditioning is becoming established in different settings for different reasons. There is no one story of diffusion, nor is it always the case that air-conditioning is about keeping people cool.
In the hospitals and universities we studied, air-conditioning was introduced to maintain standard operating conditions required by other technologies including computers, server rooms, and the specialist equipment now packed into intensive care units.
By contrast, upmarket hotel rooms were increasingly likely to have air-conditioning not because of any sudden change in the climate, but because cooling has become associated with quality.
In the UK, cooling is not (yet) critical for peak load – heating is still more important. But the balance is changing, and is changing in a direction that implies increasing energy consumption, and increasing CO2 emissions as well.
As governments seek to address climate change and costly peak demand, it is timely to start thinking not only about efficiency and behaviour, but about different ways of managing the relation between indoor environments and the technologies and people they contain.
Professor Elizabeth Shove and Professor Gordon Walker will be visiting RMIT University from 12-16 November for the Beyond Behaviour Change Symposium.
Terry Hill
Principle
Have you thought about what it will be like when every building will be its own power source, connected to a micro grid, thereby obviating the need for all those poles and the AC comes directly from the sun?
John Newlands
tree changer
Some research partly by UNSW suggests people cannot work or think straight with wet bulb temperatures >35C
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/21/9552.full
If time-of-use energy pricing requires concessions for the vulnerable during heat waves or cold snaps no doubt this will be abused, I envision 'carbon cops' preparing single rooms within a house entitled to get concessional heating or cooling. This is akin to the survival room in cyclone ravaged areas.
For now we believe we are entitled to tens of cubic metres of surrounding air and furniture at just the right temperature. That may have to change.
Frank Arthur
logged in via Facebook
Part of the problem is we have become used to air conditioning as we strive for greater (but unsustainable) comfort levels Whereas in the past we shopped on the high street and travelled on breezy public transport, we now spend increasing amounts of time in enclosed spaces (e.g., shopping malls) where air conditioning has become the norm. We therefore expect our vehicles and homes to have the same level of comfort (especially temperature) as the other enclosed spaces we frequent.
John Newlands
tree changer
Low energy solutions to thermal comfort do exist but they may not fit our sense of entitlement. A couple of brands are available of circulating water blankets with the thermostat adjustable from 10C to 40C. Perhaps the wearer could watch a screen device while wearing the blanket (more comfy than a space suit) yet draw less than 80w.
The problem is we think we deserve better. On a frosty night our breath may condense and the windows may ice up but we should be OK. In a heatwave the glare may be dazzling while the ground is too hot to walk on but again we should be OK. 20 m people each using 80w is 1.6 Gw, a doddle for Australia's electrical system. We're using over 30 Gw I believe in national heat waves because we think we're entitled to air conditioning.
I have a zero watt solution, namely a 3m deep cellar that is 18C when above ground it is 40C but that may be difficult to do in the suburbs.
Dennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
John, your cellar holds the key. Many suburban blocks could accommodate geothermal heat exchangers - basically circulating saline 3m underground where the temperature is relatively constant at between 12C and 18C depending on location. Easier with new subdivisions but not impossible to retrofit where the house doesn't fill the block and the yard is sufficiently large and accessible, so not McMansions.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Geothermal Heat Exchangers can have several advantages over normal air-conditioning.
- Reduced energy consumption
- Lower global warming due to reduced CO2 emission
- Better aesthetics
- Zero acoustic impact
- Longer life expectancy
- No health risks assosciated with Legionella
A case study for Macquariy University was conducted here:
http://www.geothermalaustralia.com.au/case-studies/case-study-4.html
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Electricity may be more expensive, but I think the cost of our imported air conditioners has decreased in time, making them more widely used.
Heating is actually easier to achieve than cooling. Simply wear more clothes, including thermal underwear.
I have sometimes wondered if businesses should provide thermal underwear to their employees, and then turn down the heating.
Cooling is a problem.
I think many house designs are almost criminal, and I have seen whole new suburbs where every house is a brick oven that requires air-conditioners as a part of basic operation of the house.
Jerry Vanclay
Dean of Science at Southern Cross University
Problem will solve itself when there is real-time electricity pricing. Take an analogy - wine makers take grapes that are relatively standard in price and package them into boutique products that vary 100-fold between the best and the bladders. Electricity retailers do the opposite - they buy electricity at prices that vary 1000-fold between the peaks and nights, and blend it into a uniform product sold for a few cents. This is illogical and unsustainable. When we have real-time electricity pricing, we'll see fewer air-conditioners and more sensible use of all electricity, and reduce the need for grid capacity....
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer
"Problem will solve itself when there is real-time electricity pricing."
Indeed but as we all know, smart meters have got a bad press helped along by the contemptuous attitude of suppliers to consumers. Smart meters could be successful but suppliers will need to develop a considerate attitude to consumers first.
Marion Brook
BA, Grad Dip Ed (student)
Hmm. So, if you're well heeled you can afford to use your A/C on those 40C stretches. If you're on a pension or earn minimum wage your A/C will become least affordable when it's most necessary. That sounds fair. Knock off the frail or vulnerable first, they're such a drain...
Askgerbil Now
logged in via Twitter
Marion sums up a view of Jerry's solution: "Hmm. So, if you're well heeled you can afford to use your A/C on those 40C stretches."
A NSW Infrastructure report says Australia now has $11 billion invested in electricity distribution that is only used 1 percent of each year.
Real-time electricity pricing may be the price signal to avoid such a high cost for something needed so rarely.
A worthwhile goal is to avoid the need for this investment and yet still afford air conditioners when they…
Read moreJohn ED Barker
Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University
First- thanks to the authors for their contribution to our understanding of energy use for comfort. Peak demand for utilities and infrastructure is certainly a major problem leading to significant costs as well as loss of amenity.
As you indicate, the problem is multi-dimensional- both public and domestic, both summer and winter, both night and day, as well as demographic (eg more retired baby boomers at home during the day). We need to take care to not confuse these different issues and the different…
Read moreDaniel Boon
logged in via LinkedIn
The elephant in the hot-box is poor housing design ... a watered down Building Code of Australia (BCA) Energy Rating system; courtesy of the biased lobby group that has seemingly hijacked the Housing Industry of Australia (HIA) and poor federal and state government knowledge of cause and effect sees continued record sales of air-conditioners.
Having designed and built my first energy efficient house in 1984 (and had several in various media over the years) and having conducted presentations to…
Read moreNeville Mattick
Grazier: Biodiversity is the key.
Is this symbolic of the 'softness of society' that demands 'climate control' in an era of "climate out of control" in the true Environment - caused by Humans.
Personally we have no air conditioning and rarely use the vehicle one, if it is too hot to work outside (35° plus or so) we start early then sit it out to the cool of day, use open windows and at worst a fan, not everyone can do this, not everyone should.
I do resent the cost of energy for the peak demand costs that further marginalise a Grazing enterprise and has provoked the NFF (National Farmers Federation) to call an end to the RET - something I do not agree with.
Askgerbil Now
logged in via Twitter
Air conditioners may be responsible for the extreme peaks in electricity demand that occur only during extremely hot weather.
If a portion of the electricity demand for air conditioners is shifted to off peak periods then electricity grid infrastructure will be more efficiently utilised all year and the extreme peaks in electricity demand in heat waves will be lower.
Thermal energy stores (based on phase change materials) allow this "load shifting" by retrofitting of existing air conditioning systems.
The U.S. seems to be well ahead of Australia in applying this technology.
Some links to suppliers of commercially available systems:
CALMAC: http://www.calmac.com/
IceSynergy: http://www.icesynergy.com/L4-6-TES.html
PCP Australia: http://www.pcpaustralia.com.au/hetac.html
Daniel Boon
logged in via Facebook
Or ,,, for something really radical ... how about real energy efficient house design and construction as opposed to the BCA (Building Code of Australia) tepid '6 star rating' watered down by the HIA (Housing Industry of Australia) through continued lobbying to government ..
Marion Brook
BA, Grad Dip Ed (student)
An excellent piece to put some of the ideas from the comments into perspective.
https://theconversation.edu.au/strategies-for-coping-with-extremely-hot-weather-11478?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+9+January+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+9+January+2013+CID_f896c4cd91891b4e8460f83dabe9aea7&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Strategies%20for%20coping%20with%20extremely%20hot%20weather
Some quotes
"Heat stroke is a medical emergency, leading…
Read moreAskgerbil Now
logged in via Twitter
Couldn't agree more with Marion's assessent. Air conditioning is crucial for the elderly and young who are most at risk during heatwaves. The Chief Health Officer, Victoria report on the January 2009 heatwave concluded 374 extra deaths resulted from extreme heat in the week the Black Friday bushfires killed 170 people. http://blog.gerbilnow.com/2013/01/heatwave-kills-more-than-bushfires.html
Electricity price signals are useless with rental accommodation. Tenants are responsible for electricity bills. Air-conditioning, insulation, awnings and the like are the responsibility of the landlord.
A re-think of Government policies for incentives (eg. aimed at landlords) to lower energy costs of rental properties will be more useful than electricity price signals.
Heating in winter is just as serious a problem. Low-cost electric heaters that rental property tenants are likely to rely upon use 4-5 times more energy than a reverse-cycle air-conditioner used for heating.
Kaan Kemal Solmaz
logged in via Facebook
Free advise given on climate control systems in the UK. Vat free air conditioning.
www.zerodegreeac.com