AC use rising sharply in India, will surpass all other home appliances by 2050: Report

Air conditioner ownership in India has increased threefold since 2010, reaching 24 units per 100 households due to rising heat. Electricity consumption due to space cooling has increased 21% between 2019 and 2022, and today nearly 10% of electricity demand comes from space cooling requirements, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

- Jayashree Nandi

Household air conditioner ownership is estimated to expand ninefold by 2050, outpacing the growth in ownership of all other household appliances including televisions, refrigerators and washing machines, the IEA’s World Energy Outlook has projected.

Since 2000, India has brought electricity to 810 million people, larger than the population of the European Union and the US combined, according to IEA. India has also brought clean cooking access to 655 million people since 2000, although 430 million people continue to live in households that use traditional biomass. Over the past five years, solar PV has accounted for nearly 60% of new generation capacity. India has had the single largest light-emitting diode (LED) adoption campaign in the world, with around 370 million LEDs distributed by 2023. India has also achieved self-sufficiency in petroleum refining capacity despite being a net crude oil importer, although certain petroleum products continue to be imported.

“Over the past five decades, India has witnessed over 700 heat wave events, which have claimed over 17,000 lives. Fuelled by its geographic and meteorological conditions, air conditioner ownership in India has been steadily rising with growing incomes, tripling since 2010 to reach 24 units per 100 households,” the report states.

To be sure, this doesn’t mean that 24% of households have air conditioners but that between them, 100 households have 24 ACs, while some likely have multiple ones.