To summarise, AC was turned off floor by floor, with the switch off starting from 16:00 over a Friday, a time when most administrative personnel is getting off work for the weekend. The entire building had AC switched off by the end of the day, including the upper floors. Note that AC was working fine this Monday.
/s
(Seriously, look at these comments. What is happening to HN? Is this what previously productive people now do with their free time while their agents are churning?)
Nothing specific to the European commission though, we just don't hate mainstream architects enough
Discussion, common sense requires discussion. All you need to know about them in one sentence.
In France these ideologues oppose A/C becauase it's evil: it makes us comfortable when we should be uncomfortable - if we are comfortable in an era of climate change, we'll only make it worse. And it's all America's fault anyway because of their emissions.
When do we vote out ideologues and have logical people in power?
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...
120GW of nameplate solar capacity is nothing to sneeze at even with the latitude challenge. That's more solar than almost all of California's energy generation combined, or most of the eastern United States.
In comparison, fewer than 2k people die annually of heat in the US, well under 1 per 100k. And for symmetry, there are about 7k gun deaths annually in the EU, which is just slightly under 1 per 100k.
* "not technically feasible" - people talk about old buildings with oddly shaped windows
* "can't afford it" - as you see here. people talk about the units themselves and the electricity bills
* "our infrastructure can't handle it" - this has to do with things like grids overheating, failing
* "our infrastructure can't handle <the regulations>" - things like nuclear reactors in France not allowed to raise the temperature of rivers by another N degrees during a heat wave
* "it's bad for global warming" - a little late for that, probably should save lives first
literally hospitals in europe don't have AC throughout the entire building yet. global warming is really coming at them fast
Edit: Downvoted because HN users don't understand living paycheque to paycheque. Talk about an echo chamber.
I just watched a video where a person bought a £200 portable unit. He was using it in the UK and said he spent about £0.89 / day. And I'm assuming they won't use it for that many days a year.
Seems affordable enough for "most ordinary working people"
Bulgaria is one of the poorest EU countries and I have seen there way more ACs than in much richer Czechia or elsewhere, this is not about price at all
heck, even in Czechia I find much more ACs in some poor cities compared to the richest Prague, I've seen bigger AC ratio per apartment in my small poor ~40K hometown than in Prague, in our 40 units building in Prague I was the first one to have AC, after many years now followed by neighbor under me, 2 out of 40 units in relatively rich Prague, crazy (though it's true our top corner of the building is warmest from all apartments)
So 78F. I wonder what temp the lower/non-AC floors are at. It's reasonable if they want to prevent the upper floors from becoming insanely hot, since hot air rises.
I set my AC to 26 degrees. Otherwise it feels too cold.
Kinda weird though even for Europe that a high profile 10+ floor commercial building doesn’t have suitable climate control
Ground level and basement floors have been known as the coolest places in skyscrapers for centuries.
It was the first seven floors. Coincidentally, also the floors most of the higher-ups don't work on. Or at least that's how it's being reported, so I don't think people's outrage is absurd.
The broader discussion about AC in Europe is good to have, but this specific story seems to be borderline click-bait.
I really think that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back moment for EU. Right now people are learning that EU = unbearable heat and other things.
If they were forced to work without air conditioning and it was me, I would go to a doctor, tell them I am suffering from heat exhaustion, and get a voucher for not returning to work until the situation gets fixed.
Now, why can't the building handle running the AC without an emergency shutdown? No clue, seems odd to me, unless there was a neighborhood-wide power issue?
It's like satire. What is AC for if not extreme heat?
Shutting down AC on floors 1 to 7 likely allows them to get better performance on floors 8 to 13
But I am unconvinced that AC manufacturers have different "sizing"... An AC unit is for hot places and the outdoor unit may be in a very hot spots with ambient easily above 40C.
Edit: Yes, AC systems for a whole building are different but still the system on the roof experiences the full Sun and very hot conditions, this isn't the issue. Perhaps they simply badly designed it so that it hasn't got the capacity to cool the whole building when it's actually hot so they prioritised (actually now I get that this is what you meant). Obviously it is easier to blame "weather conditions"...
Just like heat pumps for heating in winter are amazing for our regular mild-ish winters, but if you get a really cold spell and it drops to -35C, it's just not going to work at all to a point where it might not even start - you could also say "well what's the point of a heating system that can't heat in extreme cold".
The extreme is the keyword.
To translate: When it's hot, air conditioners use more electricity. This is because they use more electricity because they have to work harder to keep a cool temperature.
The reason why electric grids are too old to handle the load is because:
Electric grids were built for smaller populations with the assumption that we'll build more as we make more babies; AND; electric grids weren't built to handle the temperature rise from climate change.
Additionally, sometimes unnaturally high temperatures break AC systems put in place with poor planning. This is very common in UK supermarkets every summer.
> poor planning.
> very common in UK supermarkets every summer.
What?
since we're not that used to extreme heat in EU, units with max working temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius are pretty common and the air around the AC unit is warmer than regular outdoors air, doubly so if they're placed on the ground and the glass from the building reflects some additional heat from the sun.
the risk of this was broadcasted in our local news for home AC owners when the forecast reached 40, as lots of apartments have the AC on partly glass-encased balconies, or on walls facing direct sunlight...
>”The European Parliament has also faced blackouts this week due to energy consumption from cranking up its cooling system.”
Alternatively one can install water sprinkers on roofs like they do in China.
new mini splits are way more efficient than older systems as well.
insulation in older homes/buildings might be an issue though
It is, of course, just them.
"more than 1300 excess deaths have been recorded since 21 June linked to the extreme heat in Europe"
"There were approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2019, according to modeled estimates."
https://wmo.int/media/news/record-breaking-heat-spreads-thro...
Get a free standing unit like this: https://i.imgur.com/giewYeK.png
Shove the plastic tube outlet out of a window. End of installation. You're welcome.
Seriously why is this so difficult and what is this learned helplessness? You would rather be miserable than do literally anything?
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If there is a balcony and you install it there, so nobody can see it from the street, is there an AC installed? I am can you even use your balcony the way you want and place there big cardboard box if you need? Same thing. Facade is a one thing, balcony is something completely different.
Also 19 satellite antennae, if my count is right.
By sizing I simply mean the number and capacity of roof units. Cooling an office building down by 8C is a lot easier than cooling it by 18C. I doubt half the roof units are shut down. Maybe some are, but most will have their output redirected to cooling the top half of the building
Gas furnaces are 80%-98% efficient, heat pumps are 300-400%.
