There is no denying we are seeing an incredible shift in the climate around the world, with heat waves and bush fires in places you wouldn’t have expected in years gone by.
As time is progressing we are starting to expect that we will experience a greater frequency of high temperature weather extremes which in turn will force us to examine how we are currently living and how we will stay comfortable in the heat.
As well as being uncomfortable the extreme weather events creates a lot more issues than one might think.
Its getting hotter how do we stay cool?
Thats alright we'll just turn on the aircon!
For a long time now that has been the exact answer to beating the heat. With our options being heading to the beach, Heading to your local shopping centre to wander around in the cool air or stay home and reach for the air conditioning remote.
The problem now is nearly everyone else is thinking the same thing and you end up with what can be a spot of bother.
1) The shops become overcrowded making the shopping centres aircon work harder and potentially pushing it outside of it’s design parameters creating a more uncomfortable space.
2) Power outages have and can happen due to the grid not coping with the spike in electrical usage and all the air conditioning turns off.
A problem that wont be going away
In 2017 the Australian Government came up with a bit of a novel solution to the problem… Pay people to turn off their aircon to reduce power usage during peak weather events. Whilst we might think this is a great idea it is only really a bandaid on the overall issue that will only grow worse as more homes and buildings are created to cope with the growing population coupled with more frequent weather extremes.
Solving the issue by heading underground
Whilst the title of this post might conjure up images of finding a cave to live in one of the solutions is much easier and more practical than that. Below our feet we have access to the near stable temperature of the earth that we can utilise with ground source heat pumps to provide truely efficient cooling.
Due to the use of the near stable temperature of the ground we are able to eliminate the peak electrical spikes experienced by conventional air conditioning that puts the power grid under so much extra stress. When conventional air conditioning systems struggle to reject the removed heat to the already hot air a Geoexchange system just carries on as per usual without the spikes.
Where do i start?
At Adelaide Geoexchange we are happy to have a chat to discuss how a Geoexchange Cooling solution could help you smooth out your peak electrical usage whilst staying cool. We can also look for opportunities to reuse the heat we remove to create hot water and or pool heating.