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Emma White

As heatwaves become more frequent and intense across Asia, the region faces a dangerous power paradox. Soaring demand for air conditioning threatens to push electricity grids closer to failure just as extreme heat puts the infrastructure under greater strain, raising the risk of cooling disappearing when people need it most.
That risk has been visible across the region this summer.
In South Korea, President Lee Jae Myung called a record heatwave a “national disaster” in August after the death toll rose to 19, ordering officials to inspect power systems as air-conditioning demand surged.
In Japan, 39 people died of heatstroke across Tokyo’s 23 central wards in August. Of those deaths, 37 occurred indoors, with 31 involving people who were not using air conditioning.
In India, an extended spell of hot weather pushed peak electricity demand close to a record in May. Cooling needs kept demand at about 267 gigawatts over several days, leaving nearly a third of coal-fired power plants operating with critically low fuel stocks.
Heatwaves drove spikes in electricity demand as more people turned to air conditioning, especially during peak hours from late afternoon to early evening, said Eduard Muljadi, a power systems expert and electrical engineering professor at Auburn University in the US.
“At the same time, the grid’s infrastructure, especially transmission lines and transformers, is stressed by the heat itself,” Muljadi said on the university’s website.
“These components can overheat, lose efficiency and become more prone to failure.”

He added that the efficiency of both thermal plants and renewable energy sources could drop during peak heat.
Karachi offers one of the starkest examples of what happens when extreme heat and power failure collide.
Eleven years ago, as Pakistan endured a record-breaking heatwave, chronic outages left residents with few ways to escape scorching temperatures, contributing to more than 1,200 deaths. The city’s grid repeatedly failed for 12 hours or longer, turning fans and air conditioners into useless ornaments.
As air-conditioning ownership expands across Asia, the number of people and power systems exposed to those risks is likely to grow.
Total demand for cooling technologies rose by 50 per cent from 2015 to 2025, according to data from the International Energy Agency. In 2025, global demand reached roughly 2,900 terawatt-hours – more than the European Union’s total electricity consumption that year. By 2035, the IEA estimates total global demand for space cooling will reach 4,500 TWh.
In Asia, the combination of intense heatwaves and rising middle-class incomes is set to fuel a rise in air-conditioning ownership over the coming decades, particularly in developing nations. In Indonesia, the IEA expects the share of the population owning an air conditioner to rise from 14 per cent in 2023 to 85 per cent by 2050.
That growth is not being driven by heat alone.


Yuyu Zhou, a geography professor at the University of Hong Kong, said extreme heatwaves and rising incomes across Asia’s developing economies both contributed to the cooling demand spike.
Rising household incomes made air-conditioning purchases feasible for more families over time, while extreme heat served as the immediate catalyst for those purchases, he said.
“We find that countries like India and Indonesia are right at the steepest part of the curve, where one extreme heat season, combined with rising incomes, can unlock a huge amount of new demand almost overnight,” Zhou said.
But as more units are installed, they change the urban environments they are meant to make more bearable.
Air conditioning directly adds to the urban heat it is meant to relieve, according to Yuan Chao, an urban climate researcher and architecture professor at the National University of Singapore.
Each unit releases hot air back into the atmosphere, contributing to “anthropogenic heat” or heat generated by human activity.
Zhou added that air-conditioning use could drive up nighttime temperatures in particular, pointing to Chongqing’s 37-day extreme heatwave in 2022 that pushed temperatures to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), making it the Chinese city’s hottest August since records began in 1961.
Urban waste heat – including heat expelled by air conditioners – accounted for almost half of the total nighttime warming during that heatwave, Zhou said.

Simply using less air conditioning was not a viable answer because cooling could also protect health, particularly among elderly and vulnerable people, Chao said.
“If it’s very hot outside, they stay at home 24 hours,” Chao said. “But they don’t want to use AC [air conditioning] for 24 hours, otherwise it will be very expensive. They just tolerate, tolerate, tolerate.”
Singapore offers an example of how governments can address these competing pressures.
Under its Climate Friendly Households Programme, eligible households can claim S$400 (US$312) in vouchers towards energy-efficient air conditioners. Meanwhile, the city state’s national heatwave response plan opens air-conditioned cooling centres in public community facilities when extreme temperatures are forecast, prioritising vulnerable residents and older people.
Zhou said making air conditioning more efficient and affordable was an important part of the solution.
Models currently on the market vary widely in efficiency, with older, less efficient units typically costing less up front.
To encourage people to buy more efficient models, Zhou suggested vouchers, rebates or trade-in programmes. Governments could also enforce minimum energy performance standards to prevent inefficient systems from entering the market entirely, he said.


But reducing the need for mechanical cooling is also important.
When implementing urban cooling measures in existing cities, Chao said planners should first identify key air passages that allow wind to ventilate dense neighbourhoods.
Those areas could be designated as “no-build zones”, he said, with planners advised against putting up additional structures that could block the flow of cooler air.
Other strategies include strategically planted shade trees, cool roofs painted in light reflective shades and sky gardens.
For cities with tighter budgets, Chao said improving wind ventilation was the most cost-effective first line of defence. “Wind is free,” he said.
Cities could also ease grid pressures by encouraging people to use fans instead of or alongside air conditioners and shifting their non-essential energy use away from peak demand hours, Zhou said.
“This integrated approach protects public health while limiting waste heat, emissions and blackout risks during extreme heatwaves,” he added.


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The cooling trap: how Asia’s air conditioners are making heatwaves worse

An elderly woman rests at a heat relief shelter in Guryong district, Seoul, South Korea in August. Photo: AFP

High-tension power lines outside a substation in Mumbai, India, in August 2017. Photo: Reuters

Visitors walk past a cooling fog installation at Gwangmyeong Cave in Gwangmyeong, South Korea, in August. Photo: AP

Southeast Asia’s extreme heat exposes holes in safety net for outdoor workers

A farm worker sprays fertiliser on a paddy field in Selangor’s Sabak Bernam district, Malaysia, on April 1. Photo: EPA

Workers transfer harvested oil palm fruits to a transport truck in Pekanbaru, Indonesia, in April 2022. Photo: AFP

A worker supported on safety ropes paints the facade of an residential building in Singapore on June 29. Photo: AFP 

Koy Phanida poses with her family on her delivery bike. Photo: Handout

Wong Yan Ke, regional campaign officer for climate and forestry at the Asia-Pacific regional office of Building and Wood Workers’ International. Photo: Handout

North Korea advises citizens to eat dog meat to beat the summer heat

A waitress shows dishes made of dog meat at a restaurant in North Korea in 2018. Euphemistically known as “dangogi”, or sweet meat, dog has long been believed to be a stamina food in North and South Korea and is traditionally eaten during the hottest time of the year. Photo: AP

Pyongyang organised a dog-meat cooking contest in 2020. Photo: Kyodo

South Korean animal rights activists holding dog-urn boxes pay a silent tribute during a press conference against eating dog meat in Seoul last month. Photo: AP

Pedestrians walk along a mist-spraying zone to cool off on a street in Seoul on Monday. Photo: AFP

Climate crisis leaves Malaysia with hot-headed youth

A pedestrian carries an umbrella crosses a street in front of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

A woman uses an electric fan to cool off from the heat in Kuala Lumpur. The Unicef survey findings underscore Malaysia’s need to emphasise climate adaptation plans, experts say. Photo: AFP

Pupils leave class at a school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Public health experts warn that young children are among the most vulnerable to extreme heat. Photo: Shutterstock

Asia’s shaky food supply shudders as ‘super’ El Nino arrives

Illustration: Huy Truong

A tropical storm forms over the Pacific Ocean on June 3. El Nino tends to intensify Asia’s tropical storms. Photo: CIRA/NOAA/AP

A worker is seen in a sugar cane field in Thailand’s Ratchaburi province in 2016, during a previous “super” El Nino event. Photo: Reuters

Cacao pods on a cacao tree at Cocoa Baan Suan farm in the Sankamphaeng district of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photo: Aidan Jones

A butcher speaks to customers at a fresh food market in Hong Kong on June 10. Photo: AFP

A woman walks in a field in Nepal after planting rice in 2021, a year with adequate rainfall. Photo: EPA-EFE

A farmer and his wife harvest radishes in fields outside New Delhi in temperatures near 40 degrees Celsius earlier this month. Photo: AFP

A Indian farmer sprinkles organic biofertiliser on a field in Bichpuri village, Uttar Pradesh, on June 9. Photo: AFP

Koranut Rattanayanyong at his cacao farm in the San Kamphaeng district of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photo: Aidan Jones

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As heatwaves intensify across Asia, soaring air-conditioner use is threatening power grids and warming urban nights


As heatwaves intensify across Asia, soaring air-conditioner use is threatening power grids and warming urban nights.


The cooling trap: how Asia’s air conditioners are making heatwaves worse

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As heatwaves intensify across Asia, soaring air-conditioner use is threatening power grids and warming urban nights

As heatwaves intensify across Asia, soaring air-conditioner use is threatening power grids and warming urban nights