this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Europe

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A New Heatwave is Forecast for Western Europe โ€“ Unseasonably High Temperatures develop under the Heat Dome as we head into October 2023 (www.severe-weather.eu)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (6 children)

How's the air conditioning coverage over there?

[โ€“] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

For Germany it does not exist. Not even for most hospitals or homes for the elderly, which is a huge problem.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In Amsterdam/The Netherlands it's basically non existent in any of the older buildings. In newer construction it's becoming more common.

We live in in a an office building that I would guess was built some time in the last 15-20 years that has since been turned into apartments and we have some kind of radiant floor cooling/heating. It's not super strong but it's a hell of a lot better than my girlfriend's old ~1800s building with south facing windows. That little apartment turned into an oven in the summer.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

south facing windows. That little apartment turned into an oven in the summer.

Can try something like this:

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/home-window-solutions-us/solutions/temperature-control/

It's an infrared-reflective film you can put on your windows.

Or if you have the windows open, slatted shutters or a slatted screen.

I'm assuming that in the Netherlands, it's humid in summer, so probably can't use an evaporative cooler; that might be useful somewhere like Madrid.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Ah that's pretty cool. Fortunately we don't have that issue in our new place but I'd definitely keep that in mind if we moved somewhere not so ideal in the future

[โ€“] gusgalarnyk 10 points 1 year ago

1 in 8 homes was the last data I saw but it feels every day like a rarity. Some trains, big market stores, and restaurants have it but not to a degree you could count on it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not in Europe, but I understand that it's fairly common in some southern areas, but overall much less common then the US. Air conditioning is apparently more common for offices and stores than for residences.

Rolling out more air conditioning in Europe may not be a terrible thing from the standpoint of electricity providers. As things stand, unlike the US, where peak electricity demand is in the summer (due to air conditioning), Europe's peak electricity demand is in winter, due to electricity-driven heating. Having more-even seasonal demand probably makes life easier for the grid.

All that being said, I believe that the article is talking about unseasonably warm temperatures for October -- which is not that hot -- not so much extremely hot summer temperatures. This may not be a "roll out air conditioning" sort of thing.