© 2024
NPR News, Colorado Stories
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
KUNC's The Colorado Dream: Ending the Hate State has arrived! Join us each Monday through Nov. 4 for a new episode.
KUNC is among the founding partners of the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration of public media stations that serve the Western states of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Cooling demands are high, but it’s not just because of the heat

A man dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and cap holds his glasses and wipes sweat from his brow. He is standing in a driveway on a hot, sunny day.
Ross D. Franklin
/
Associated Press
After finishing up an air conditioning repair call, Michael Villa, a service tech with Total Refrigeration, finds shade as he wipes sweat from his face July 19, 2023, in Laveen, Ariz. Nevada and Utah were some of the states, like Arizona, that experienced the highest increases in the number of days where cooling was needed.

As summer temperatures continue to rise, more people are turning to air conditioning to cool down. But temperature isn’t the only factor driving this demand.

Climate Central analyzed 240 U.S. cities based on their number of days where average temperatures exceeded 65 degrees Fahrenheit, the ideal engineering standard indoor temperature. Ninety-seven percent of the cities analyzed have seen an increase in days with an average temperature above 65 degrees since 1970. Arizona, Nevada and Utah were among the states with some of the largest increases.

Vijay Modi, a mechanical engineering professor at Columbia University, said higher daily temperatures over the past few decades have contributed to an overall increase in the number of days outside of that temperature "comfort zone." All it takes is one hour of the day past a certain temperature mark to raise that overall average.

“Those early days, we didn't have data and we didn't worry about what happens every hour,” Modi said. “Now we worry about what happens every hour.”

Modi did his own research on demands for heating and cooling across the United States. He found that several states in the Mountain West ranked among the highest in the nation for average cooling demands – with some of the biggest pockets of demand in Colorado and Utah.

 Three maps of the U.S., one colored in shades of red and two of them colored in shades of purple.
Vijay Modi
/
eartharxiv.org
A screenshot from one of professor Vijay Modi's reports titled Differential effects of climate change on average and peak demand for heating and cooling across the contiguous United States. His report shows demand for cooling is increasing across the nation — and particularly in some pockets of the Mountain West.

But Modi believes Climate Central's numbers could be misleading, as the study only measured the daily average temperature.

If at night it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit and in the day it is 90, then we kind of assume that that day is 70 and there is [less] cooling demand, which is somewhat inaccurate,” he said. “It is not a perfect measure by any means.”

The International Energy Agency reports that the global demand for cooling could “more than triple by 2050, consuming as much electricity as all of China and India today.”

This demand comes from more than increasing temperatures, though. Modi said more people are moving to hotter states, living in bigger homes, and relying on continuously-running central air conditioning over window units they can shut off when not in use.

“[It's] actually swamping and making the demand much higher then what might be suggested by climatic effects,” he said.

Two men work on the fan on the underside of an air conditioning unit outside a house. One man is bending over the fan and tinkering with it, while the other is standing over the unit and looking down at his co-worker while holding a drill.
Ross D. Franklin
/
Associated Press
JP Lantin, right, owner of Total Refrigeration, and service tech Michael Villa, work on replacing a fan motor on an air conditioning unit July 19, 2023, in Laveen, Ariz. A study out of the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that a power outage during a heat wave could lead to the death of about 13,000 Phoenix residents.

With more people using A/C units, there’s an increased strain on the power grid. And that could be disastrous if the grid goes down during a heat wave.

Modi said people should be more cognizant about which rooms need A/C and set indoor temperatures to higher than 65 degrees to lower the cooling demand. He also recommended having a backup cooling source in case of a grid disruption.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

I'm the General Assignment Reporter and Back-Up Host for KUNC, here to keep you up-to-date on news in Northern Colorado — whether I'm out in the field or sitting in the host chair. From city climate policies, to businesses closing, to the creativity of Indigenous people, I'll research what is happening in your backyard and share those stories with you as you go about your day.
Related Content