Do you remember last year’s heat dome? How it went on and on and on? How it made the forest fire situation so much worse? How one could actually get sick of seeing the sun every day?
We are thankfully experiencing a much nicer summer this year, but don’t kid yourself, hot, hot, hot summers are going to become more the norm as our climate changes.
One of the things I did this year in anticipation of another hot summer was to get a portable air conditioner. Even if it hasn’t been as hot, it has still become my new best friend.
According to BC Hydro, air conditioner use in the province has tripled since 2001, rising to 34 per cent of homes. BC Hydro sees that trend continuing.
While we in B.C. are actually having a pretty ideal summer, that is not the case for much of the world. Europe is having an extreme heat wave right now, and it has been going on for almost a month. A glacier collapsed in Italy at the beginning of the month, and 11 people were killed. Another glacier in Kyrgyzstan collapsed a few days later. Thankfully no one was hurt in that incident. Spain is also experiencing extreme heat, and the accompanying forest fires. As is France.
And England is also suffering in 40 degree heat. As anyone who has travelled to Europe can tell you, most of the architecture is old. It’s charming and beautiful and in no way built for 40 degree temperatures. In fact much of it, particularly in England, which historically is not known for hot, sunny days, is actually designed to retain heat, to keep it in on those cool, rainy days so typical to the British climate.
It is estimated that less than five per cent of British homes have air conditioning. That number goes up a bit for Europe as a whole but until these heat waves started happening with more regularity, Europe had a pretty mild summer climate, and people just put up with a few days of 30 plus weather each year. But the number of a/c units are rising.
I know with myself, one heat dome event was all I needed to convince me to invest in one.
But even parts of the world that are very used to heat, and where air conditioning is simply a part of life, are facing some issues.
The New York Times reported that nearly 35 million people in Texas and the central plains were under excessive heat warnings last week. And in Texas, while you can turn down the a/c to alleviate the heat, the power supplier ERCOT, has asked people not to do that. They ask instead that you reduce electricity use to avoid rolling blackouts.
Now, in most places in North America, if one power grid is facing extreme use, power can be diverted from a connecting grid that is not so stressed. But not in Texas. That state, which prides itself on independence, is not connected the national grids. They didn’t want any crazy federal rules governing their own power. So they are on their own, and, as was proven by an unprecedented cold snap in February 2021, independence comes at a price.
The power system in Texas simply couldn’t hold up during the Arctic weather and people actually froze to death in their homes.
And now with another extreme heat event in the southern states, a state full of air conditioned homes is asking resident to please don’t use the a/c so much. So hurray for independence, I guess.
In B.C. our power supply seems fairly secure. BC Hydro assures customers that although demand is rising, so that summer demand can have peaks as large as those in winter, there are plenty of supply options to meet that need. We have surplus electricity in this province and BC Hydro says we have more than we will need until 2030. After that, well plans are being made to meet future demand through a combination energy conservation and developing more generation.
That’s another reason B.C. is a good place to be. Excuse me, I am off to hug my air conditioner.