Explosion of energy demand for air cooling in summer: perspectives and solutions (EEDACS)

The Swiss Federal Office of Energy has published directives in order to limit the increase of electrical energy consumption to a maximum of 5% in 2010 in comparison with 2000. To reach this goal, clear measures have to be taken regarding the installation and the utilization of air conditioning systems. Considering the current growth, the needs of energy related to air conditioning will reach 2'500 GWh/year in 2020 if no action is put in place to limit it. This is even worse as the electrical demand linked to air conditioning explodes in summer when the electricity production with hydraulic sources is the lowest. In order to answer this problem of drastic increase of energy consumption linked to the air conditioning, a research has been undertaken on needs and reasons for air conditioning installations in buildings and the concrete measures to limit these installations or their consumption. The needs for the next 20 years have been predicted, the motivation of these needs have been understood, the air conditioning techniques have been studied as well as the legal framework, and an overheating model has been developed. The result is a list of measures taking into account the application delay (short to long term), categorized by domains, awareness action, information, and organization, technical and legal aspects. For example the measures involve reducing the internal heating load, tuning of the existing installations, supply of photovoltaic power to the air conditioning systems, a better demonstration of the needs and integration of the SIA norm 180 in the law.