Euronews.green writes that in Italy, one entrepreneur had to keep her store temporarily closed due to the fact that gas-powered generators blocked her door. The reason? They fed power to surrounding AC units, which were blasting in an attempt to cool down the atmosphere.

The amount of energy used by Italy during the 40 degrees Celsius-period was 59 gigawatts, nearing a record set back in 2015, also in a scorching July.

During the second week of July, energy demand grew by 30%, which caused some blackouts in certain areas, as the power grid was struggling to keep up.

The share of AC units installed in European countries grew from 10% in the year 2000 to 19% last year, with more and more people purchasing such appliances for their homes or shops.

In Nordic countries and even Germany, the need for such electronics is not as high, since temperatures there only go as high as a little over 30 degrees at most.

However, experts at the University of Cambridge stated that this may not hold true for long, since global warming starts to affect these climates, as well. This is especially bad news for people living in the UK, Norway or Finland, for example, as the thermal discomfort they will feel in the coming years is expected to be exponentially higher that populations who live in southern regions.

However, adding more AC units to solve the problem isn't an ideal solution, experts say, as "from a scientific point of view, if we all run to the go-to solution, which is air conditioning, we are going to get into a different type of problem, because there is high energy consumption and high carbon emissions related to air conditioning."

More sustainable solutions

There may be hope, however, as earlier this year, a team of researchers at Cambridge University in the UK is working on a plant-based film material that remains at low temperatures when exposed to sun rays.

The proposed material aims to solve another pretty big issue of AC units, that of power consumption, as these cooling devices use significant amounts of power.

Despite this, AC sales are at an all-time high on the Old Continent, as in Italy, 1.92 million AC units were sold in 2022 compared to just 865.000 a year before.

Statista reports that Romania saw a demand for 126.000 AC units back in 2021, but chances are the figure increased in the past two years, since the country is also facing a heatwave of its own.

Many people are still put off by energy bill prices or the pure energy waste that goes when turning the devices on, but soon, we may have no choice.

Except we might have a few; authorities will need to do better urban planning, implement more green spaces, which are known to reduce the temperatures, especially in concrete-packed areas, while water-spraying is also found to be an effective way to cool off the population and the atmosphere. Also, clothes that help dissipate heat are a great option for those who have no choice, but to go outside.