Spatiotemporal analysis of the future residential cooling demand in Great Britain

The increasing need for residential cooling in Great Britain due to rising temperatures could pose significant challenges to the electricity infrastructure. This study estimates the spatiotemporal cooling demand for residential buildings in Great Britain in 2050. A bottom-up methodology using a lumped parameter dynamic thermal model of building was applied to estimate half-hourly cooling demand and the electricity consumptions of cooling devices for representative dwelling archetypes in 41,726 local areas. The upper estimate for annual and peak electricity consumptions for cooling technologies have been estimated to be 9.3 TWh and 62.6 GW, respectively. The study highlights regional demand variations, correlations between the electricity consumption of cooling technologies and electricity generation by distributed photovoltaics, and the moderating effect of higher dwelling thermal capacities on cooling peak demand. These insights highlight the need for electricity infrastructure reinforcement, and integrated strategies for buildings retrofit and renewable energy to ensure system resilience.