India Heat: What Record AC Sales Reveal About Heat Wave

Govind Ram, a scrap dealer living 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 the city and surrounding areas, and his schoolchildren were complaining of “suffocation” from the heat. Using his savings, Mr Ram bought an air conditioner for his children’s room. The relief, he says, came at a steep cost — his electricity bill last month had risen seven times its usual amount.

“I have endured the worst summers with just one 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 extreme heat is among the worst, experts believe. According to the Energy, Environment and Water Council, about 97% of Indian households have electricity, and 93% of them rely on fans for comfort. But this year, the air conditioning market in India witnessed an unprecedented boom.

“In my 45 years in the air conditioning industry I have never seen anything like this,” says P Thiagarajan, Managing Director, Blue Star, a leading refrigeration and air conditioning company. “The surge in demand has come as a complete surprise, with sales likely to more than double.” “This summer compared to last year.”

Mr. Thiagarajan expects air-conditioner sales to grow an unprecedented 60% this summer in India — from March to July — compared with the usual 25% to 30% growth in previous years. A decade or more ago, he recalls, sales peaked in the last week of May. “Now demand peaks in April.” Companies have sold in three months what they would normally sell in nine months.

Although only 8% of India’s 300 million households own air conditioners, some with multiple units, India is the world’s fastest-growing air conditioning market. 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 think tank, predicts ownership of household air conditioners in the country will increase ninefold by 2050, outpacing growth in ownership of all other household appliances, including televisions, refrigerators and washing machines.

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

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

It is worth noting that 95% of air conditioner buyers in India are first-time, middle-class aspirants; more than 65% come from smaller cities and towns; and more than half buy on interest-free consumer loans. The average buyer is now in his 30s. Most sales come from the hotter northern region—since mid-May, for example, daily temperatures in Delhi have remained consistently around or above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

Experts say Indian cities have become “heat traps” due to unbalanced development. Nearly 1 billion people in 23 states are exposed to heat stress, according to CEEW. Green spaces are rare. Rapid growth engulfs bodies of water that help cool the environment. Increased greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, factories and construction activities raise temperatures even further. India’s high-rise building boom has given rise to poorly ventilated apartments and office buildings made of glass and chrome, which absorb and reflect heat. All this makes cities hotter and more uncomfortable to live in.

But this is only one part of the story. To measure how people are coping with rising temperatures, which has recently occurred nationwide reconnaissance Written by the Artha Global Center for Rapid Insights (CRI), a research center, the question was asked: “In the afternoon, when it is hot outside, is the interior of your home comfortable?”

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

Only one in eight four-wheel drive vehicle owners found their homes uncomfortable in high temperatures, compared to about half of those who did not own any vehicle. Conversely, about 40% of two-wheeler and four-wheeler owners rely on air conditioners or chillers for their home comfort, while only 16% of non-vehicle owners use these cooling solutions.

The data highlights how poor people are coping with extreme heat even indoors, without direct exposure to sunlight, said Nilanjan Sircar, director of the Climate Research Institute. In other words, “the gap between rich households, who already have air conditioning, and poor households, who cannot afford it, is widening,” according to a study on air conditioning and global inequality by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Mannheim in Germany.

Living in windowless shacks with poor ventilation and irregular electricity makes staying indoors unbearable. Many slum dwellers work literally in the luxury apartments next door, where electricity is available 24/7. “The electricity is not enough,” one told Reuters. Newspaper Recently: “I don’t want to go back to my slum. When I work [in an apartment] “I feel like lying under the cool breeze of the air conditioner.”

India needs to restore aquatic habitats—lakes, reservoirs, ponds, wetlands and canals. It also needs to build cool houses, using cool roofs—white-painted ceilings that lower indoor temperatures—and pipe chilled water into buildings, and install more energy-efficient air conditioners.

Last year, 63 countries, including the United States, Canada and Kenya, signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. First ever pledge India has made great efforts to reduce cooling emissions. But India has not. However, India has made progress, says Shalu Agrawal of the Centre for Energy and Environment in Central and Eastern Europe. As one of the first countries to implement a greenhouse gas emission reduction system, India has been one of the first countries to implement a greenhouse gas emission reduction system. Cooling business planIndia has followed nearly two decades of policies to improve the energy efficiency of air conditioning. Inverter air conditioners, which are more efficient, now dominate the market, and companies set a default temperature of 24°C 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-based social media platform, found that 43% of air conditioner users in Delhi and its suburbs say their units cannot cool to the 23-24 degree Celsius range. Temperatures in the capital have frequently topped 45 degrees Celsius this summer.

No one doubts that air conditioning is essential. But the widespread use of air conditioners also raises outside temperatures by expelling internal heat. Their chemical refrigerants pose environmental risks.

Extreme weather events like heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense as climate changes. India needs to do more to protect its people from the heat. More than 140 people have died in India’s scorching heat this summer, officials say. The real toll is likely much higher.

As India faces a severe heatwave, the surge in air conditioner sales highlights a stark reality: that the urgent need for equitable access to cooling solutions remains unmet.