Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian says smuggled air conditioners put an extra and unwanted burden on the electricity grid.
"Close to one million air conditioners are imported [illegally] every year of which 70% are substandard," Ardakanian said quoting a report by the Majlis Research Center.
Because of the low-quality cooling devices, as much as 3,000 megawatts of extra cooling load is added to the grid annually, Paven, the Energy Ministry news portal, reported.
Cooling load is the amount of heat energy that would need to be removed from a space to maintain the temperature in an acceptable range.
"To meet the heavy load, new electricity infrastructure, namely three power plants with total 3,000 MW capacity should be built every year costing north of $5 billion," he said.
The growing use of air conditioners in homes and offices will be one of the main drivers of electricity consumption growth rate in the years to come, the minister said.
Moreover, supplying power to these (smuggled) ACs comes not only with hefty financial costs but there is also an environmental price to pay.
“The rising electricity demand for air conditioning is a critical issue,” he said, noting that air conditioners may provide comfort but it is “essential that energy consumption and efficiency also get priority.”
Quality and performance of the bulk of imported ACs are much lower than acceptable levels, he warned.
Energy experts, including Ardakanian, believe that measures such as putting mandatory energy labels on ACs can reduce the need for more power infrastructure to meet rising demand. Making cooling more efficient will also have other benefits like making it more affordable and more sustainable.
A new analysis by the International Energy Agency shows the global stock of air conditioners in buildings will grow to 5.6 billion by 2050, up from 1.6 billion today – which amounts to 10 new ACs sold every second for the next 30 years.
Using air conditioners and electric fans already accounts for about a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world– or 10% of all global electricity consumption.
The growth in AC demand in hotter regions is set to soar – thanks to global warming and the lack of a binding global commitment to fight the growing danger despite some international agreements to reduce greenhouse gases.
Global energy demand from air conditioners is expected to triple by 2050, requiring new electricity capacity equal to the combined electricity capacity of the United States, the EU and Japan today.
In 2015, Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), held in Paris, aimed to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, to keep global warming below 2°C.
The last COP (COP22) took place in Morocco, in 2016. The main goal of the talks was to provide a next step from current commitments by developing a path toward an agreement that would achieve considerable emission reductions from all major economies and poorer countries.
