Albertans sought respite during record-hot July. Spike in electricity use suggests they found AC
Air conditioning hasn't been widely adopted in the province, but that's changing
Sweating through day after day of a heat wave that wouldn't break, many Albertans bit the bullet and sought out air conditioning.
"The calls were fast and furious," said Teseo Berardi, service manager at Edmonton heating, cooling and plumbing company Weiss-Johnson.
"Everyone was interested in air conditioning. They were even more interested in having air conditioning installed about 45 minutes ago."
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, it was the hottest July on record in the Alberta communities of Edmonton, Calgary, High Level and Grande Prairie.
The first heat warning of July came early in the month when the entire province saw temperatures soar for a few days. But after a brief reprieve, the heat returned in mid-July, with Edmonton experiencing highs of 30 C or hotter for seven consecutive days.
In Medicine Hat, temperatures were above 30 C for 10 straight days; in Grande Prairie, the heat lasted eight days, beating the previous seven-day record from 1936.
In Edmonton, nightly lows during the heat wave were around 20 C, meaning homes had little chance to cool overnight.
Any hope of opening windows to get relief was complicated by wildfire smoke that blew in for several days from blazes in Alberta and B.C.
Alberta's increasing interest in AC
An influx of calls after a few hot summer days is nothing new for HVAC companies. Business owners say they're also fielding more inquiries about electric-powered heat pumps, which can work for both heating and cooling, even if homeowners would rather also keep their natural gas furnace as a winter backup.
But historically, home air conditioning has been uncommon in Alberta, with many deeming it an unnecessary expense given our relatively short summers and the likelihood of hot days being balanced by cooler evenings.
At JDK Heating & Cooling in Sherwood Park, Alta., service manager Keith Norton said call volumes tripled. Some people were so desperate for air conditioning that they offered to pay thousands of dollars above the quoted price to get to the front of the installation line — something Norton said the company didn't do.
"We went into a house, a brand new home. It didn't have AC and the upstairs of the house was 37 C," he said.
"Everyone's got a story, whether it be a new baby, a cat and dog in the house, health problems.... I think people are really feeling that this is going to be a continuing thing. This isn't a one-off."
In 2021, the most recent year with Statistics Canada data on household air conditioner use, 37 per cent of Alberta households had some type of air conditioning, with the vast majority being central air systems. That's up from 26 per cent in 2013.
On the Prairies, Alberta has been a bit of an outlier in terms of home air conditioning. According to Statistics Canada, three-quarters of Saskatchewan households had air conditioning in 2021, while in Manitoba, that number was 90 per cent.
Impact on electricity use
Heating and cooling systems are the largest users of household electricity. In July, an uptake in air conditioning factored into four summer electricity-use records set in Alberta, according to a spokesperson for the Alberta Electric System Operator.
The first record was set on July 9, when 11,820 megawatts were used surpassing a previous use record from 2021. After that, new records were set on July 10 (12,122 megawatts), July 17 (12,219 megawatts) and July 22 (12,221 megawatts).
Alberta's electricity demand has always been higher in the winter; the province set a winter electricity use record during a brutal cold snap in January. The all-time summer peak of electricity use falls just shy of the 12,384 megawatts used on Jan. 11.
Sara Hastings-Simon, a University of Calgary associate professor with expertise in electricity systems, climate policy and energy transitions, said the current emphasis is on changes to reduce emissions produced by energy systems.
"But the reverse is true, too," said Hastings-Simon.
"Climate change is going to force us to make changes to our energy systems because they were constructed for a different kind of environment."
Solar power could be especially helpful in meeting bigger summer peak demands, she said. Alberta could also look at expanding grid battery storage, which U.S. states like California and Texas use to make sure they can meet demand.
Another option is creating incentives for people to use more electricity when it's available — for example, using AC to pre-cool the house earlier in the day, instead of turning it on in the evening when demand is highest.
"The piece that's kind of missing in Alberta for now — although there's certainly been indications of plans to look into this — is that compensation piece," Hastings-Simon said
"We need some changes to the way consumers interact with the electricity grid to be able to make it possible for utilities to give them those savings based on when they're using electricity."
Into the future
Other changes playing into the boosted use of air conditioning are current trends within the home construction industry.
According to heating and cooling service managers Berardi and Norton, new houses are designed with big windows and constructed on small lots in subdivisions without mature trees.
These houses aren't as easy to keep cool as ones built decades ago, they say.
Many Edmonton HVAC companies are still working through weeks-long waiting lists for quotes and installations, despite technicians coming in for extra shifts and working overtime to try to meet demand.
"We saw a percentage of homeowners that have thought about air conditioning for decades and just never gotten uncomfortable enough to really take that next step," Berardi said.
This July, "they got to the point where they took the next step."
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