Unfolding the rise in cooling demand from residential buildings sector in India

India’s buildings sector contributed to about 36% of total electricity consumption, with residential buildings comprising nearly 79% of this demand in 2025 [1]. Within residential electricity use, cooling alone accounted for about 31% of the consumption and has seen a rise by 50% over the past decade [1]. India has one of the highest cooling gaps in the world primarily driven by population growth and affordability constraints [2]. India energy security scenario (IESS) 2047 suggests that, with rising per capita income, the residential air conditioner ownership expected to increase by 1.3 folds in the next decade [3]. India Cooling Action Plan has projected that cooling electricity consumption will be doubled by 2038, however passive design strategies on building envelop can reduce the consumption by 15% [4]. V. Chaturvedi et al., (2020) and R. Khosla et al., (2021) suggested that along with passive design interventions, promoting consumer awareness also plays a crucial role in reducing the cooling energy demand [5, 6]. Despite rising cooling demand, the combined quantitative influence of consumer behaviour, climate, technology, and building characteristics on cooling electricity demand in India remains insufficiently explored. 

To address this research gap, the authors have developed a bottom-up generic model to estimate the residential cooling energy demand based on variation in ambient temperature, appliance ownership, and relative humidity. The model is applied to India as a case study and with parameters calibrated using context-specific empirical data. Cooling degree days (CDD) serve as a metric to quantify ambient temperature rise relative to a base temperature of 24ºC. The analysis estimates the sensitivity of cooling demand to ambient temperature variations, expressed as a percentage increase in electricity consumption per degree rise. By varying the base temperature from 18ºC to 26ºC, model also captures the influence of consumer behaviour on cooling energy demand. The developed model is soft linked to SAFARI, a system dynamics model, developed by Centre for Science, Technology, and Policy (CSTEP) to design low carbon pathways for India. SAFARI explores the interlinkages between demand sectors such as buildings, transport, agriculture, forest and other land use (AFOLU), industry and supply sector, i.e., power. Soft-linking will enable to generate scenarios of different combinations of climatic conditions, behavioural aspects, varying appliance penetration rate, low carbon interventions in residential building sector such as, cool roof, wall insulation, alternate construction materials etc. These scenarios will allow understand the potential possibilities of reducing the energy demand for the country and can inform policy making on demand side management measures. 

 References: 

1. CSTEP. https://safari.cstep.in/safari/ 

2. Debnath, B. K. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10040078 

3. NITI Aayog. https://iess.gov.in 

4. Government of India. India-Cooling-Action-Plan.pdf  

5. Chaturvedi, V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05749 

6. Khosla, R. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abecbc