As heat waves become severe, can cooling be a right?

India's cooling demands are expanding at an exponential rate due to the country's fast urbanisation and rising temperatures. It is anticipated that the refrigeration and air conditioning industries will grow by at least 50% within the next ten years. While this growth is consistent with the social and economic development of India, it has significant side effects, such as increased peak load impacts, and need for additional power generation capacity, and a substantial carbon footprint. 

India currently has one of the lowest access to cooling across the world as per the International Energy Agency’s report on Access to Cooling. Only 13 per cent of Indian households are equipped with air conditioners. Use of air-conditioning is likely to expand in the next two decades covering 69 per cent of households, pushing the country’s electricity requirement up by three times from the house cooling sector alone. However, the decision to purchase air-conditioning in response to warmer climatic conditions is strongly anchored to a household’s socio-economic condition and demographic characteristics. Low-income households are the most affected by health issues during heatwaves, since they may not own a proper air conditioning system, or not be able to sustain the energy costs for Air Conditioning (AC) use. 

Poor economic conditions in the states most gripped by extreme heatwaves – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal lead to higher vulnerability for a large population. Concentrated in these states, the extremely high-risk areas are less urbanised, with fewer household amenities, lower rates of literacy, and less access to water and sanitation for their residents. Energy poverty disproportionately hits the most vulnerable and is highly likely to rise in the future.

Increased Carbon Emissions

With soaring demands for electricity for cooling, there has been a surge in carbon emissions. Today, almost 1 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions are released into the atmosphere worldwide as a result of the energy required to cool buildings  The increased fossil fuel burning for power in the country drove up carbon emissions between 2022 and 2023 by nearly a sixth, to 1.15 billion tonnes. As the power demand spikes, India’s reliance on fossil fuel including coal and gas is expected to surge to cope with heatwaves and avert power outages. 

In late April 2022, India’s energy demand hit a new record of 201 gigawatts. Despite a sufficient installed energy capacity of 236 gigawatts, India faced the challenge of insufficient fuel supplies. As a result, many power generation companies operated with negligible stockpiles of coal. At the end of March, as temperatures began to climb, generators had only nine days of operating reserves, far below the twenty-four days recommended by the Indian government. 

During the challenging 2022 heatwaves in India, around 14 states faced a power crisis owing to low coal stocks  - 106 of 173 power plants were running on less than 25 per cent of their usual reserves. The crisis reached a point where 657 passenger and mail trains had to be cancelled to make way for the movement of coal rakes. 

The coal ministry expects demand for coal to trend upwards even as heat waves will make it harder to produce enough electricity while simultaneously decarbonising.

Effects on Other Power Sources

All kinds of power generation sources are susceptible to extreme weather events and changing climatic patterns. High temperatures have affected other power-generating sources including nuclear, coal, and gas-fired power plants as well. These power plants require a high volume of water as a cooling agent. The temperature of water in the water bodies, especially in water reservoirs located inland, has significantly risen due to rising heat impacting the water’s cooling efficiency. This would eventually hamper the plants’ power generation efficiency. 

Shifting to Renewable Sources to Meet Demand

One way to solve the growing energy crisis and power scarcity predicament is to commit to ramping up renewable energy. New power infrastructure is needed to support this demand in some areas and new lower-emission lower-heating technologies are critical. India has set a target for 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity by 2030 — also the year by which the country's coal demand is estimated to rise by 60%, to up to 1.5 billion metric tons, to meet growing electricity needs. However, an analysis by Third Pole, found that India had to “invest USD 223 billion (Rs 1,784,000 crore) to meet its 2030 climate targets”, but the current investment is short of USD 13 billion. “Not only is India adding renewables at a slower pace than needed, it continues to persist with fossil fuels”, Third Pole found. A just transition from fossil fuels to renewables is strewn with political challenges that range from lack of vision and commitment to obstacles in land acquisition, creation of jobs, investments, and others. 

Access to Cooling as a Right

Although transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables is not easy, India’s rising heatwaves show that there is a need to act fast. Access to cooling should be seen as essential during intense heat waves, not only for reasons of productivity and health but for survival. There is a need to centre low-income populations and prioritise their energy needs as a prerequisite for a robust economy and society.