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India’s electricity demand to rise by 12% by 2050: StudyThe report also finds that climate-driven temperature changes may cause about 430,000 more deaths annually by 2050.
Last Updated27 July 2026, 21:39
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Representational image of an electric metre.
New Delhi: India’s electricity demand is set to rise by 12 per cent by 2050 – one of the fastest in Asia – driving higher access to air-conditioning in urban centres and putting more stress on an already strained electricity grid, says a new report on climate change released on Monday.
The report by the Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago notes that over half of rural Indian households experience electricity outages multiple times per day and even a modest rise in demand will further compound the problems unless electricity infrastructure is improved.
“Roughly five per cent of Indian households own an AC, with ownership considerable higher in urban households (around 13 per cent) than in rural households (about one per cent). AC penetration in India is expected to rise rapidly in the coming decades and is projected to exceed 50 per cent by 2050,” Ashwin Rode, a fellow at the Climate Impact Lab and one of the co-authors of the study, told DH.
The report also finds that climate-driven temperature changes may cause about 430,000 more deaths annually by 2050 with 10 times more deaths occurring in poor countries including Bangladesh and Pakistan than in richer nations.
Among the Asian nations, Iraq tops the chart with a projected 17 per cent rise in electricity consumption followed by India. None of other Asian nations crossed the 10 per cent market. A substantial part of the increased consumption will be spent on cooling the houses and offices.
The priorities for India, said co-author Emily Grover-Kopec, will be to identify and scale up adaptation solutions that are successful in managing the impacts of extreme heat in India such as expanded access to health care, particularly for vulnerable populations in rural locations, and providing short term guaranteed employment opportunities.
Air conditioning, according to the researchers, is a life saver, and climate change will no doubt lead to more AC adoption in wealthy countries. But many nations particularly in Africa and Asia will not be in a position to access the air-conditioning.
“Our research finds how in too many countries around the world, people will not be able to respond in the same way. The result is one of climate’s great cruelties — lots of death in the very countries that have contributed the least to climate change,” said Michael Greenstone, a distinguished professor in economics at University of Chicago who led the study.
The report identifies 18 countries — home to 676 million people — that are trapped in such deadly combination of extreme heat and lack of cooling.
Due to hotter temperatures and little projected increase in energy consumption, around 377,000 people in these areas are set to die annually by 2050.
All of them live in either low-income or lower middle-income countries today, mostly in northern sub-Saharan Africa such as Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad. The rest live in Southern Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.
These trapped countries sit in stark contrast to their wealthier neighbours. For example, countries across the Gulf like Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are equally as hot as sub-Saharan Africa.
But Gulf countries consume much more electricity for cooling and are projected to have big increases, leading to far fewer deaths.
“We’ve identified the places most at risk of seeing more people die from the heat and least able to power up ACs to save them, so people and governments can zero in on saving the greatest number of lives,” said Rode.
