The role of residential air circulation and cooling demand for electrification planning: Implications of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa
研究结合气候、社会经济和卫星数据，模拟撒哈拉以南非洲无电家庭的制冷需求，发现考虑制冷需求后电气化投资平均需增加65.5%，气候变化可能再增4%，呼吁规划者重视气候适应性能源需求。
Nearly 1 billion people live without electricity at home. Energy poverty limits their ability to take autonomous actions to improve air circulation and the cooling of their homes. It is therefore important that electricity-access planners explicitly evaluate the current and future air circulation and cooling needs of energy-poor households, in addition to other basic energy needs. To address this issue, we combine climate, socio-economic, demographic and satellite data with scenario analysis to model spatially explicit estimates of potential cooling demand from households that currently lack access to electricity. We link these demand factors into a bottom-up electrification model for sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the world's highest concentration of energy poverty. Accounting for cooling needs on top of baseline household demand implies that the average electrification investment requirements grow robustly (a scenario mean of 65.5% more than when considering baseline household demand only), mostly due to the larger generation capacity needed. Future climate change could increase the investment requirements by an additional scenario mean of 4%. Moreover, the share of decentralised systems as the lowest-cost electrification option falls by a scenario mean 4.5 percentage points of all new connections. The crucial determinants for efficient investment pathways are the adoption and use of cooling appliances, the extent of climate change, and the baseline electricity demand. Our results call for a more explicit consideration of climate-adaptative energy needs by infrastructure planners in developing countries.