Climate Management

Millions of air-conditioning facilities do, of course, require huge quantities of electricity! Heating models in North America and Europe blow away gigantic quantities of fossil fuels annually. Who is to say that this must remain so? Our subsidiary Genesis Technics offers all-combinative concepts: heating, cooling and saving energy all at the same time. This is made possible by the synergy between the individual Genesis-typical disciplines and intelligent technology.
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In the last fifteen years, energy consumption related to the air conditioning of buildings has more than doubled. This sharp increase will continue, although researchers point at that air conditioning corresponds to no real need. This conclusion is reached by a study conducted in the context of the national research programme, “sustainable settlement and infrastructure development”.

Power consumption for air conditioning systems doubled between 1990 and 2010, from 711 to 1591 gigawatt hours. This corresponds to 2.8 percent of the power consumed in Switzerland and half of power production at the Mühleberg (Switzerland) nuclear power plant. By 2020, if this trend continues, consumption will reach 2264 gigawatt hours. In addition, this development could be accelerated by particular events, as demonstrated by the last, exceptionally hot summer, when power consumption soared, even in this country.

How serious the consequences of a broad introduction of conventional air conditioning systems would be can be seen from a look across the Atlantic. Where a large proportion of households have air conditioning systems, the peak outputs of the power supply systems are reached not in the winter but rather in the summer when all the air conditioning units are humming (see graph).

State-wide power cuts are the result, not only in California. Germany must avoid ever falling into such dependency as in the USA. A spread of air conditioning systems in private households would be fatal for our energy supply, disastrous for the global climate and unaffordable for energy consumers.

In hospitals, retirement homes and so on, air conditioning systems are justified. However, those healthy people who run conventional air conditioning systems are either ignorant or acting irresponsibly in view of global climate change, which is becoming increasingly significant.



Source: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds SNF www.snf.ch