Four minutes of air conditioning

For five months of the year, temperatures in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, climb above 35 degrees Celsius. These temperatures are punishing for anyone, but particularly here, where air conditioning cannot offer any relief.

While people in richer parts of the world can switch on their ACs, for billions in energy-poor countries, there is little electricity available to power a fan or an air conditioner.

We can see this by comparing how much electricity people use at home on a typical day with how much power an air conditioner requires.1] Let’s consider a typical single-room air conditioner that [uses around 1,000 watt-hours of electricity in an hour.[2]

Inefficient models can use 1,500 watt-hours of electricity per hour — 50% more than a typical air conditioner. That’s why efficient AC units are even more important for those in energy poverty.

In at least 45 countries, the *average *residential electricity use per person for an entire day is less than the electricity that is required to power an air conditioner for one hour.[3] In the chart, I’ve shown how long the average person could run an air conditioner for across a selection of these countries.

In India, the daily electricity budget is sufficient for only 44 minutes of AC. In Nigeria, just 13 minutes; and in South Sudan, just 4.[4]

As a consequence, most people in some of the world’s hottest countries do not use AC. The most recent data from the International Energy Agency suggests that just 5% of households in India, 6% in South Africa, and 16% in Brazil had air conditioning.[5] In the very poorest countries, almost no one has it.

What alternatives do they have? Maybe an electric fan?

Even a basic one is out of reach for many.

An electric fan uses around 50 watt-hours of electricity per hour. The chart below shows how long the average person could run one for across another set of countries.

The average Nigerian could run a fan for around 4 hours (although they would have no other power to spare for lighting, phone charging, or cooking). The average in Haiti is about 2.5 hours. But in the world’s most energy-poor countries, the average person cannot switch on a fan for even just an hour.

Extreme heat makes it harder to sleep, learn, and work. It raises the risk of both acute and chronic illnesses, including heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease. Because the heat impacts people’s productivity, it traps people in poverty.[6]

In colder countries, we wouldn’t accept people freezing in their homes. The opposite is also true: we shouldn’t accept people working and living in oppressive heat without ways to cool themselves down.

Air conditioning can be a truly life-saving solution for some people and make life much less miserable for billions. If they are to become available for billions, the world needs more and cheaper power and an end to global poverty.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Max Roser and Edouard Mathieu for editorial feedback and comments on this article.

Endnotes

1] To calculate daily residential electricity consumption per person, I’ve used electricity consumption data from the [International Energy Agency (IEA). It gives an estimate of residential electricity used annually for each country. By dividing by population, we get an estimate of the average use per person (and then dividing by 365 gives us the daily value). Note that underneath this average, there can be very large inequalities, with many people having no electricity at all, and those that do, consuming much more than this average value. Without more data on the complete distribution of consumption, this still gives us some insight into the depth of energy poverty in many countries.

[2] This varies depending on the efficiency of the AC unit and local conditions such as humidity. In very humid conditions, air conditioners are less efficient and often use more electricity. In drier climates, they likely use less. A plausible range is anywhere from 600 to over 1,600 watt-hours. In these calculations, I’ve used 1000 watt-hours everywhere for consistency.

[3] I say “at least 45 countries” here because a number of low-income countries do not have data, and are likely to be well below the 1,000 Wh threshold.

[4] Many people live with family or friends, so they might be able to share this electricity “budget”. But electricity is also needed for other things: lights, phone charging, a refrigerator, a television, or an oven. Even in a household with two or three people, running an AC unit for even a few hours a day would be far greater than their current electricity consumption for the day.

[5] This latest data is for the year 2018. Rates are likely to have increased slightly since then, but probably not more than a few percentage points.

[6] Park, R. J., Goodman, J., Hurwitz, M., & Smith, J. (2020). Heat and learning. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. Obradovich, N., Migliorini, R., Mednick, S. C., & Fowler, J. H. (2017). Nighttime temperature and human sleep loss in a changing climate. Science advances. Minor, K., Bjerre-Nielsen, A., Jonasdottir, S. S., Lehmann, S., & Obradovich, N. (2022). Rising temperatures erode human sleep globally. One Earth.

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