Temperature-Induced Residential Air Conditioning Adoption and Its Effect on Electricity Use in China
利用大规模多轮调查数据，研究中国家庭空调拥有率如何随温度变化，发现每增加一个制冷度日，空调拥有率平均提高0.09个百分点，且高收入家庭和特定气候区影响更大；预计到2050年，气候变化可能导致部分省份夏季用电量较2015年增长150%以上。
Air conditioning (AC) ownership has displayed notable growth in emerging markets. For electricity supply planning and other purposes, it is important to understand when and where AC adoption is expected. This paper constructs a household-level dataset based on a large-scale, multi-wave survey to examine how residential AC ownership responds to temperatures in China. We find that each additional annual cooling degree day is on average associated with a 0.09 percentage point higher AC ownership rate, all else equal. The effect is amplified at higher incomes and varies by climate zone. The effect for heating degree days is smaller. We calculate that changes in temperatures under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 2-4.5 scenario may contribute to a 150% or larger increase in residential summertime electricity use in some provinces of China by 2050 relative to 2015, in large part due to additional AC adoption.