What record sales of air conditioners show about the heat wave

Govind Ram, a junk dealer who lives on the outskirts of the Indian capital, Delhi, bought an air conditioner in May after his children begged him.

A scorching heat wave was scorching his town and neighborhood, and his school-going children complained of “suffocating” heat. Using his savings, Mr. Ram bought the air conditioner for his children’s bedroom. That relief, he says, has come at a cost — his electricity bill last month rose to seven times the usual amount.

“I endured the worst summers with just a fan. But this year, my children suffered so much that I had to buy our family’s first air conditioner,” said Mr. Ram.

Over the past five decades, India has faced more than 700 heatwaves, but this summer’s intense and unrelenting heat must rank among the worst, experts believe. About 97% of Indian households are electrified, with 93% relying on fans for comfort, according to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). But this year, the air conditioning market in India has grown like never before.

“In my 45 years in the air conditioning industry, I have never seen anything like this. The increase in demand is a complete surprise, with sales likely to double this summer compared to last year,” says B Thiagarajan, managing director of Blue Star, a leading cooling and refrigeration company.

Air conditioner sales are likely to see an unprecedented 60% growth this summer in India – from March to July – from the usual 25-30% growth in previous years, Mr. Thiagarajan opines. About a decade or so ago, he recalls, sales would peak in the last week of May. “Now demand peaks in April.” Companies have sold in three months what they would normally sell in nine.

Despite only 8% of India’s 300 million households having air conditioners, with some having multiple units, India is the fastest growing AC market in the world. Of the 170 million units sold globally last year, China bought 90 million, while India bought 12 million.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), a Paris-based energy research institute, predicts a ninefold increase in home air conditioner ownership in the country by 2050, outpacing the growth in ownership of all other home appliances, including televisions , refrigerators and washing machines. .

By then, India’s total electricity demand from home air conditioners will exceed Africa’s current electricity consumption, reflecting ongoing trends in the evolution of the energy system, according to the IEA.

“Increasing demand immediately reflects rising aspirations, disposable incomes and extreme weather,” Mr Thiagarajan said.

CEEW’s data reveals some interesting insights into who buys air conditioners in India.

Notably, 95% of Indian air conditioner buyers are aspiring middle-class first-time buyers; over 65% come from smaller cities and towns; and more than half buy through zero-interest consumer loans. Also, the average shopper is now in their thirties. Most sales come from the hotter northern region – since mid-May, for example, daily temperatures in Delhi have consistently hovered around or above 40C (104F).

Experts say Indian cities have turned into “heat traps” due to unbalanced development. Nearly one billion people in 23 countries are exposed to heat stress, according to CEEW. Green spaces are few. The rapid growth is engulfing bodies of water that help cool the environment. Increasing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, factories and construction activities are further raising temperatures. India’s boom has led to mostly poorly ventilated apartments and glass and chrome office buildings, which absorb and reflect heat. All this is making cities hotter and more uncomfortable to live in.

But this is only part of the story. To assess how people were coping with rising temperatures, a recent nationwide survey from Artha Global’s Center for Rapid Insights (CRI), a think tank, posed the question: “In the afternoon, when it’s hot outside, is the inside of your home comfortable?”

About 32% of respondents reported that their homes were hot and uncomfortable, highlighting India’s struggle with extreme temperatures. Among those who can cool their homes, 42% rely on energy-intensive air conditioners or chillers, indicating that heat management often requires costly solutions.

Also, only one in eight four-wheel drive owners found their homes uncomfortable in extreme heat, compared to nearly half of those who owned no vehicle. Conversely, about 40% of two-wheeler and four-wheeler owners rely on AC or refrigeration for home comfort, while only 16% of non-vehicle owners use these cooling solutions.

The data highlights how the poor cope with extreme heat even indoors, without direct exposure to the sun, said Neelanjan Sircar, director of CRI. In other words, “the gap between wealthy families, who already own air conditioners, and poor families, who are not yet able to afford them, is widening,” according to a study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley. and the University of Mannheim. , Germany on air conditioning and global inequality.

Living in windowless shacks with poor ventilation and erratic electricity makes staying indoors unbearable. Many slum dwellers literally work next door in luxury buildings with 24/7 electricity. One told one Newspaper recently: “I don’t want to go back to my slum. When I work [in an apartment] I feel like lying down under the cold breeze of the AC”.

India needs to rejuvenate aquatic habitats – lakes, reservoirs, ponds, wetlands, canals. It also requires building cool homes, using cool roofs – roofs painted white to reduce indoor temperatures – supplying buildings with cold water through pipes and installing more energy-efficient air conditioners.

Last year 63 countries, including the US, Canada and Kenya, signed the global agreement first pledge ever to drastically reduce cooling emissions. India does not. CEEW’s Shalu Agrawal, however, says India has made progress. As one of the first countries to implement one cooling action plan, India has pursued nearly two decades of policies to improve AC power efficiency. Inverter ACs, which are more efficient, now dominate the market and companies set a default temperature of 24C for energy efficiency. Energy ratings for fans are also mandatory.

But the evidence on the ground is mixed. A recent survey by LocalCircles, a community social media platform, found that 43% of air conditioner users in Delhi and its environs say their units cannot be cooled to the 23-24C range. Temperatures in the capital this summer have often exceeded 45 degrees Celsius.

No one doubts that air conditioning is a necessity. But the widespread use of air conditioners also increases outdoor temperatures by expelling indoor heat. Their chemical refrigerants pose environmental hazards.

Extreme weather events such as heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense with climate change. India needs to do a lot more to protect its people from the heat. More than 140 people have died from extreme heat in India this summer, according to officials. The real number is probably much higher.

As India struggles with an unforgiving heat wave, the surge in AC sales underscores a grim reality: the urgent need for equitable access to cooling solutions remains unmet.