There is another interesting angle here: AC can actually be a useful flexible load on a renewable-heavy grid.
We increasingly have periods when solar/wind generation is deliberately thrown away because there isn't enough demand, storage or transmission capacity — curtailment.
AC, heat pumps, water heaters and EVs give us loads that can be shifted into those periods. Pre-cool the house while solar is abundant, then reduce the load later.
Maybe the optimization problem isn't only making AC more efficient. It's making AC smart enough to consume energy when the grid has too much of it.
There is another interesting angle here: AC can actually be a useful flexible load on a renewable-heavy grid.
We increasingly have periods when solar/wind generation is deliberately thrown away because there isn't enough demand, storage or transmission capacity — curtailment.
AC, heat pumps, water heaters and EVs give us loads that can be shifted into those periods. Pre-cool the house while solar is abundant, then reduce the load later.
Maybe the optimization problem isn't only making AC more efficient. It's making AC smart enough to consume energy when the grid has too much of it.
Perhaps 'not being sold' is more accurate here ? It's not as if the power generation companies would be giving it away for free.
Pump storage hydro, synthetic fuel, desalination, pumping water between reservoirs, filtration etc. are all potential flexible loads for renewables that would be beneficial to society.
However perhaps only pump storage hydro is viable here if it is owned by the same parent companies as those producing the renewable energy. But they already know this as they have been doing this for decades with fossil fuel power stations pumping the water back up into the upper reservoirs during off-peak ready for the next peak demand.
It's making AC smart enough to consume energy when the grid has too much of it.
This has been looked at before under a wider context of 'smart appliances' which was aimed at balancing the load on the grid to reduce the issues of peak demand potentially overloading the existing grid. White goods such as refrigerators and washing machines would automatically make use of the off-peak periods and smart electricity meters would automatically compensate consumers for these devices with reduced energy tariffs for those devices. However I recall that some early attempts showed that the schemes were often short-lived as were the promised reduced tariffs.
