Public Household Consumption of Electricity from Air Conditioning in Hong Kong

Apollo Lee
December 12, 2023

Submitted as coursework for PH240, Stanford University, Fall 2023

Introduction

Fig. 1: Hong Kong in the summer. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

For summers in Hong Kong, as depicted in Fig. 1, air conditioning is considered to be a necessity, especially for public households. [1] Hong Kong has temperatures that are generally very warm, with the average temperature in 2021 being 24.6°C or 76.3°F. [2] Humidity tends to be very high due to the tropical climate, which gives further reason to implement air conditioning and other ventilation systems to improve air quality. Mold growth is promoted by high humidity and materials with a high moisture content, so many homes and buildings in Hong Kong are designed to prevent this in advance.

Analysis

The Hong Kong government has made attempts to implement a district cooling system (DCS), which consumes 35% less electricity than a traditional air-cooled air-conditioning system; a DCS uses seawater to produce cooled water to consumer buildings through an underground network of pipes. Nevertheless, air conditioning remains a major component of electricity use in Hong Kong. [3] In Table 1, we can examine the exact household consumption of electricity used for air conditioning in Hong Kong from 2011 to 2021. [4] Then, we can compare that with the total amount of electricity consumed in Hong Kong from 2011 to 2021.

Conclusion

We note that the annual household electricity use from air conditioning in Hong Kong has generally increased since 2011. The electricity use remained relatively stable from 2011 to 2013, before increasing in 2014. From there, the electricity use increased until 2017, before decreasing slightly in 2018. Then, in 2020 and 2021, there was an increase in electricity use from air conditioning in public households.

Year Electricity Use Electricity Use from Air Conditioning Percentage of Electricity Use from Air Conditioning
2011 39.1 TWh y-1 1.41 × 1017 J y-1 2.93 × 1015 J y-1 2.08%
2012 38.8 TWh y-1 1.40 × 1017 J y-1 3.03 × 1015 J y-1 2.16%
2013 39.1 TWh y-1 1.41 × 1017 J y-1 2.88 × 1015 J y-1 2.04%
2014 39.9 TWh y-1 1.44 × 1017 J y-1 3.50 × 1015 J y-1 2.43%
2015 38.0 TWh y-1 1.37 × 1017 J y-1 3.58 × 1015 J y-1 2.61%
2016 38.2 TWh y-1 1.38 × 1017 J y-1 3.76 × 1015 J y-1 2.72%
2017 37.0 TWh y-1 1.33 × 1017 J y-1 3.83 × 1015 J y-1 2.88%
2018 36.5 TWh y-1 1.31 × 1017 J y-1 3.77 × 1015 J y-1 2.89%
2019 36.9 TWh y-1 1.33 × 1017 J y-1 3.82 × 1015 J y-1 2.87%
2020 35.2 TWh y-1 1.27 × 1017 J y-1 4.28 × 1015 J y-1 3.37%
2021 37.1 TWh y-1 1.34 × 1017 J y-1 4.45 × 1015 J y-1 3.32%
Table 1: Total public household consumption of electricity in Hong Kong, compared with the total electricity use in Hong Kong from 2011 to 2021 [3,4]

© Apollo Lee. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.

References

[1] "Hong Kong Observatory," Hong Kong Observatory, 2021.

[2] "Guidance Notes for the Management of Indoor Air Quality in Offices and Public Places," Government of Hong Kong, January 2019.

[3] "Hong Kong Energy End-use Data 2023," Government of Hong Kong, September 2023, p. 40.

[4] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022," British Petroleum, June 2022.