The air before you blurs, the perspiration sizzling on your forehead as you walk home from work. You reach into your purse, your hand sliding past the cool metal of your empty water bottle, and seize the keys to your apartment. While you turn the key in your door, you anticipate the refreshing chill of the wind blowing through the vents of your AC. Instead, as you push your door open, you are greeted with an uncomfortably warm onslaught of wind on your face. The AC's silent, and the room, originally a sanctuary from the egregious heat wave, quickly turns into a prison—a furnace.
Although many experience infrequent and slight discomfort from the power grid troubles of heat waves, numerous lives in impoverished areas are endangered from this summertime struggle. Where I live in Texas, "areas with high minority populations were more than four times more likely to suffer a blackout than majority white areas," according to the Climate Reality Project. These marginalized communities are often underprivileged and can't turn to more reliable energy providers, nor book an expensive stay at a faraway hotel until the weather cools down. ScienceDirect cites that "racial/ethnic minorities—especially, Blacks and Hispanics—bear a greater energy burden than other groups," stemming largely from "socio-economic inequality." The prohibitive energy costs combined with the historical impoverishment of these communities lead to a significantly higher rate of heat-related illnesses, exacerbating climate-based structural violence.
But how is grid failure connected to heat waves? Primarily, heat waves cause increased use of air conditioning. Due to the increased demand for electricity, the infrastructure's capacity to supply that energy is being stressed. As energy demand exceeds supply, the price of electricity increases. Thus, as climate change worsened, "average utility payments for individuals earning less than $50,000 a year [rose] 38% between March 2019 and March 2024", CBS News stated. As this describes a demographic of underprivileged Americans, the price increase of energy deprives marginalized households of everyday necessities.
Heat waves obstruct energy infrastructure physically, too. Nearby water sources are commonly used as coolants for energy plants, but as temperatures rise, the water becomes less effective. A few years ago, Business for Social Responsibility found that "extreme heat in Western Australia" inhibited cooling systems and "took down the email and web servers of internet service provider iiNet" on Christmas Day in 2021. This vulnerability to heat is a critical flaw, threatening to halt progress in recent, energy-intensive technological advancements in Artificial Intelligence.
But these heat waves aren't just freak events. In July 2021, Reuters claimed that a US "Pacific Northwest heat wave" would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change. Global warming isn't just melting ice caps far away. It's starving cities of electricity and shutting down mass communication.
So, how can we solve this? According to Resource Innovations, although "more than 100 million Americans were under heat advisory warnings" in May 2024, the power grid kept up with demand better than ever before. The article stated that although demand was incredibly high, the "increase in renewable energy is enabling the country's power grids to withstand the drastic increase in demand." The article discussed that renewable energy's success was sufficient: "A full 25% of electricity generated in the U.S. came from renewable sources in the first half of [2023]."
But what's so special about renewable energy? Although renewable energy materials may be less efficient in heat waves than normal, renewable energy doesn't require significant cooling services like fossil fuels do. So, in the short term, renewable energy supplements the grid with more energy supplies and doesn't need the same maintenance as fossil fuels. By improving the grid's resistance to heat-based damage, renewable energy protects the vulnerabilities of the civilian population's energy supply. Therefore, supporting renewable energy and supplementing the grid with heat-wave-immune energy resources is crucial for the American economy.
Furthermore, in the long term, renewable energy doesn't produce greenhouse gases and therefore doesn't exacerbate global warming. Thus, going green doesn't just help us meet higher energy demands with lower cooling supplies; it also allows us to produce energy without worsening the issue in the future.
Renewable energy is certainly a good solution… but what can I do to solve the problem now? Building new energy facilities isn't in the hands of the average civilian. But there are measures that you can take at home that will also make a difference. The first is to reduce energy consumption during peak hours. Whether it's charging your EV, blasting your AC, or watching a movie, just waiting an extra few hours until nighttime could take some stress off the grid and stave off a blackout. And if you want this to be worth your while, check your utility provider and see if they offer any "time-of-use rates," which are when "utilities offer cheaper rates to encourage households to use power at certain times of the day or week," according to Bloomberg.
Once you've got that down, you can pre-cool your home. This works to reduce your AC consumption throughout the day by first cooling your house more than you desire early in the morning or late at night, then turning up the thermostat and letting the house stay cool without AC during peak hours.
Looking for a new refrigerator or washing machine? If you're buying new home appliances, keep an eye out for subsidized, artificially cheaper prices for energy-efficient appliances. Your local government may provide incentives for you to purchase these appliances instead of more wasteful ones, so be sure to take advantage of this and give back to the environment!
Energy and climate change can be tough topics, fraught with numerous facets, solutions, benefits, and drawbacks. But regardless of economic opinion or political affiliation, the suffering of marginalized groups should never be ignored. And if helping them means taking a few extra steps to optimize your energy use, or the country's energy use, then that should be considered a way of giving back to the community for the greater good.