Air Conditioning, what the actual F***
Cool Your Home, Heat the Planet.
FGas and Energy Use — Air Conditionings dirty secret.
“The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world”
That’s what the tabloids are saying, whilst the O&G industry sit laughing in the shadows at the misdirection.
Using your air-con (AKA heat pump) is bad for the planet.
Using your boiler isn’t that bad.
So long as you turn off your lights and recycle at home, all will be well.
These are just some of the common misconceptions the public makes, as revealed in a recent study by nesta.
It’s cool to be cool.
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.
Rising concerns over energy security and air quality, climate commitments (resilience & mitigation), and rising consumer trends for improved comfort levels, all play a pivotal role in a growing demand for heat pumps.
Energy demand for space cooling has risen at an average of about 4% per year since 2000, twice as quickly as for water heating.
Global energy demand from air conditioners is expected to triple by 2050, requiring new electricity capacity the equivalent to the combined electricity capacity of the United States, the EU and Japan today.
The global stock of air conditioners in buildings will grow to 5.6 billion by 2050, up from 1.6 billion today.
Whether we use heat pumps for space heating, cooling or just domestic hot water, there is a real need for us to address 2 major sources of emissions; Planet Warming HFCs and Energy Use.
Using a systems thinking approach, we can analyse a roadmap to combat these emission sources, mitigate further warming and build resilience for communities around the world.
Model:
1. Ditch Gas > Electrification (heat pumps) across all buildings
Fuel switching from Gas to Direct Electric is a viable solution in some cases, and will certainly slash your buildings carbon footprint, but minimal operational efficiency benefits are to be gained from this act.
However, heat pumps (electric) that are currently available on the market are three‐to‐five times more energy efficient than gas boilers.
What’s more, as well as reducing emissions, they reduce households’ exposure to fossil fuel price spikes, which has been made all the more urgent by the ongoing global energy crisis.
2. Reduce Demand > Improve building fabric performance
The deployment of low-carbon heating/ cooling technologies goes hand-in-hand with improvements to building envelopes.
By improving the performance of a building (from insulation and double glazing, to shading and orientation), you reduce the energy demand — thus reducing your bills/ running costs, which also has the direct benefit of reducing demand on the grid. However, as catchy as ‘fabric first’ sounds, always start with data — measure and understand your existing heat loss/ heat demand, and gather data on the whole life carbon (more on this in the next section) impacts of any materials/ products you may be looking to use.
The #1 thing that any of us can do is understand and reduce our current energy usage. If everyone used less, we would need to use less gas and coal today and build far less renewable infrastructure in the future.
3. Whole Life Carbon Optimisation > Reduce CO2 footprint
All improvements (at product or building level) should seek to assess the whole life carbon impact (embodied carbon + operational carbon).
Due to international action on HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons), the embodied carbon of heat pumps is coming down in line with the Kigali Amendment.
The phase down of HFCs is moving the industry towards low-GWP refrigerants such as R32, R290 and even CO2 — this greatly reduces the carbon footprint of heat pumps.
The foreseen phase-down of HFCs could save around 80 Gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2050 and is a significant contribution to fighting climate change. Hence refrigerant management features as one of Project Drawdowns top climate solutions.
Top-down R&D product innovation (lower GWP refrigerants) coupled with Bottom-Up industry led upskilling to improve maintenance and reduce accidents/ refrigerant leaks, go hand in hand with drastically reducing the environmental impact of heat pumps.
4. Decarbonisation > Invest in more Renewable energy sources
Focusing on the indirect emissions of heat pumps, rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector is a sure way to reduce net emissions of heat pumps and the built environment.
In countries like New Zealand, where renewables make up ~80–85% grid energy resources, CO2-eq emissions from heating/cooling buildings are already relatively low.
Electrification of buildings + Decarbonisation of the energy sector is absolutely crucial to minimise our impact on the environment and reduce our carbon emissions.
5. Resilient Grid > Overbuild Renewables
What’s the next step?
Ultimately, we need utility-scale solutions to both smooth out supply and store energy (see Matt Traversos article on the importance of this step).
If we can overbuild with renewables, we increase resilience across the system and better prepare for future peaks.
Resilience can be considered at local or central levels. Individuals can approach resilience with an off-grid mentality, utilising home batteries with solar panels to protect against peak demand periods — or large scale batteries can be implemented (where significant and exciting roads have been made into the research of sand batteries).
6. Smart Buildings > Smart Grids
Thanks to Tony Fadell and others like him, home upgrades and home automation has become mainstream. From the Nest thermostat to the Ring Doorbell, we’ve entered a new age of smart homes — we accepted smart phones into our lives and now people are living seamlessly with their homes and buildings working for them, drastically improving their comfort and convenience levels, whilst monitoring and improving their energy usage.
The beauty of electrification is the option for integration.
Our hot water systems can learn from our behavioral patterns, create schedules and effortlessly save energy.
But there’s a step above our individual homes and buildings that’s yet to be fully realised.
What if we connect one home to all others on a street?
And then connect with the next street.
And the neighboring industrial park. The scalability is endless.
The benefit?
To have a balanced energy network, reducing demand on our (renewable) energy sources and load shifting to meet demand, saving energy and carbon.
As exciting as ChatGPT is, this is where the real magic is happening.
7. Shared Solutions > Networks
What if you live in the type of building that doesn’t easily lend itself to an individual heat pump approach? Or what if you do, but a community-owned energy network sounds more attractive to you?
Well, District Heating may be for you, and it isn’t new.
District energy networks are a key stepping stone to meeting zero-carbon heating and cooling, with 350 million connections in cities globally targeted by 2030.
The expansion of these systems is projected to provide about 20% of global space heating needs. That compares to around 15% of space heating needs in 2020.
Not only can we combine the energy (electricity) powering our homes and buildings, but there’s also opportunity for shared heating/ cooling. Water loops between buildings can move heat (energy) around whole communities (such as Copenhagen) — this is another area where energy balancing can be achieved (not least through the seasonal efficiency gains of GSHPs vs. ASHPs).
In New Zealand this presents a real opportunity to recognise the value and importance of community, or kainga (Māori) — and certainly a societal opportunity not just nationally but globally too, to involve people and togetherness as the basis of a solution.
But, one key barrier to consider for combined energy networks is capital.
Unlocking funding for networks is a topic that Rufus Grantham has pioneered through Bankers without Boundaries, which has captured the minds of professionals across the industry including Sean Lockie (his article here) and myself, which I explored in a previous article on the significance of heat networks in decarbonisation.
Whether the energy network is owned and operated by a energy service provider (through HaaS) or it’s community run, what I love about Rufus’ concept, is the redistributive community aspect of this energy solution — very much aligning with Kate Raworth's doughnut model for economics.
8. Circular Approach > What’s after end-of-life?
Manufacturers, contractors and systems operators can all learn from the Ellen McArthur Foundation and Kate Raworth, we must work within the planetary boundaries, recognise limited resources and approach all activities with a circular economy mindset.
By focusing our efforts on retrofitting, re-using and upgrading, rather than demolition and construction — we can reshape the way we live and work to encompass an equitable and regenerative framework.
The Renewables Revolution
Amongst all the fear and anxiety that comes with working in this space, ( climate science, witnessing record breaking temperatures and being inundated with media sensationalism on climate denialism and whataboutism)— it is still a very exciting time to work in our industry.
We are now moving at rapid pace into the renewables revolution, with a heat pump valley opening up in Europe and global environmental commitments — the pace of change has been slow but has really gained momentum in the last few years.
We are very much working on real solutions, safeguarding people and communities. There is new product and technological breakthroughs, complimentary new ways of working, cross-industry and cross-sector collaboration; the people who care, and the people who are working tirelessly in the climate fight, have been truly inspirational. I feel privileged to have had the chance to connect with so many brilliant people, and work as part of the movement.
If you’re reading this it’s quite likely you are already working in this space (in which case, thank you!)— but if not and you’re curious to understand what differences you can make — have a look at Project Drawdown, to understand the list of climate solutions and also their brilliant guide on implementing climate strategies within your existing place of work.
9. Refrigerants > What’s lower than low-GWP?
Watch out for my next article which will look in detail at the use of refrigerants in heat pumps and explore some of the innovations in this space
You can find some of my previous articles that follow on from this discussion linked below
