£5.5m funding for AC in homes impact study
26th September 2025
UK: A groundbreaking study into the impact of air conditioning in homes and offices on the UK power grid has secured £5.5m funding from Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF).
The CoolDown project has been designed by network operator SP Electricity North West to understand and manage the effects of increased use of air conditioning on electricity networks.
The latest funding for SP Electricity North West’s CoolDown project is in addition to the previously awarded £650k to carry out feasibility studies. Teams will now carry out live customer trials.
Over the next two and a half years, engineers will explore the opportunities for air conditioning to operate flexibly with commercial and residential customers, to help balance electricity demand throughout the day and reduce the requirement for additional expensive infrastructure. The impact of increased load on transformer performance during hot summer months will also be investigated in these trials.
During the research phase, it was found that by 2050, 39% of all buildings in the SP Electricity North West licence area will overheat and 30% of them will install space cooling such as air conditioning. This is said to be a marked increase on 2023 where only 9% overheated and 5% had space cooling installed.
“We’re all seeing a change in the climate with record-breaking summers and ultimately an increase in the use of air conditioning in homes and offices. It’s important we understand how this impacts the electricity network and more importantly how we can manage it,” explained SP Electricity North West’s head of innovation, Neil McClymont.
