India's cooling energy consumption to grow around 2.2 times by 2027: Report

The country's cooling energy demand will rise to 2.2 times the existing level by 2027 and interventions can help cut it down by 17 per cent in the next decade, a report said.

The report, commissioned by the Indo-German Energy Forum, on behalf of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, was prepared by the Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE).

It deep-dives into India's cooling demand in buildings, mobile air-conditioning, refrigeration, cold-chain and process cooling in industries, and identifies key technological, operational and market interventions for the largest energy and carbon savings in cooling.

It said there is a much-needed recognition of cooling as a developmental imperative, especially in the milieu of the launch of the India Cooling Action Plan (draft) by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in September 2018.

India, which currently has one of the lowest access to cooling across the world, is poised for rapid and significant growth in cooling demand.

While this growth aligns with the country's economic and social development, it will come with adverse impacts in the form of significant additional power generation capacity, peak load impacts and an enormous carbon footprint, it added.

It said India's cooling energy consumption is expected to grow around 2.2 times in 2027 over the current baseline.

The report suggested that known interventions can help cut down cooling energy consumption by 17 per cent, help avoid around 50 medium-sized power plants dedicated to cooling and reduce cooling-related carbon emission by 20 per cent in the next decade.

It said that space cooling in buildings will continue to dominate India's cooling energy demand at around 60 per cent share and room AC stock-in-use will reach 170 million units in 2027.

Fans and air coolers will consume more electricity than all large AC systems combined in the next decade, it said.