The role of residential air circulation and cooling demand for electrification planning: Implications of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Nearly 1 billion people live without electricity at home. Energy poverty limits their ability to take autonomous actions to improve air circulation and the cooling of their homes. It is therefore important that electricityaccess planners explicitly evaluate the current and future air circulation and cooling needs of energy-poor households, in addition to other basic energy needs. To address this issue, we combine climate, socio-economic, demographic and satellite data with scenario analysis to model spatially explicit estimates of potential cooling demand from households that currently lack access to electricity. We link these demand factors into a bottom-up electrification model for sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the world's highest concentration of energy poverty. Accounting for cooling needs on top of baseline household demand implies that the average electrification investment requirements grow robustly (a scenario mean of 65.5% more than when considering baseline household demand only), mostly due to the larger generation capacity needed. Future climate change could increase the investment requirements by an additional scenario mean of 4%. Moreover, the share of decentralised systems as the lowest-cost electrification option falls by a scenario mean 4.5 percentage points of all new connections. The crucial determinants for efficient investment pathways are the adoption and use of cooling appliances, the extent of climate change, and the baseline electricity demand. Our results call for a more explicit consideration of climate-adaptative energy needs by infrastructure planners in developing countries.

Heterogeneous climate change impacts on electricity demand in world cities circa mid-century

“…To address this gap, one potential avenue for future research is analyzing how the shape of the temperature-load relationship shifts with proxies for structural and technological change in energy systems that can be linked to scenarios of socioeconomic futures 45 . Given the dependence of demand in the least developed regions on the diffusion of electrification 46 , the challenge will be to develop sufficiently long load time series from which to infer how demand responses to temperature might be influenced by development, and use the results as archetypes that can be applied to electrifying locations.…”

Air-conditioning and the adaptation cooling deficit in emerging economies

“…Stylized “S”-shaped functions have also been used to project future air-conditioning adoption and energy requirements in India 5 and in other low-income countries 17 , 18 . The expansion of households’ air-conditioning will put increasing pressure on future energy demand especially in hot developing countries 19 – 21 , and accounting for this additional driver of energy demand will help improve the aggregate projections and scenarios needed for managing long-term investments 22 – 24 . Demand-side actions will be an important element in the transition towards net zero emissions over next few decades 25 , but most models used to support policy making lack the characterization of adaptation-energy feedback mechanisms.…”

Making a Case for Centring Energy Poverty in Social Policy in Light of the Climate Emergency: A Global Integrative Review

“…Summer energy poverty poses a clear threat to both electricity grid capacity and human health. Climate vulnerability affects vulnerable groups the most (Falchetta and Mistry, 2021;Okoko et al, 2017). Moreover, users of traditional energy, such as fuelwood, are often stigmatised for using solid fuels exacerbating climate change (Pérez et al, 2022).…”