The Future of Cooling

The fastest growing use of energy in the buildings sector is space cooling, which tripled between 1990 and 2016. Left unchecked, global energy use on space cooling is projected to more than triple again and reach 6200 TWh annually by 2050. Between January and April 2017, Matteo Craglia from the Resource Efficiency Collective worked as part of the International Energy Agency team writing “The Future of Cooling” report. Currently the efficiency of air conditioning units varies widely between global regions with large room for improvement, which can be stimulated with the help of Minimum Efficiency Performance Standards (MEPS). This coupled with better building codes and technical solutions such as demand side management and avoiding overcooling could more than halve the projected growth. For further information read the full report here: https://www.iea.org/cooling/