As the world swelters, companies scramble for ways to keep everyone cool

Temperatures hit 114°F in India last week—an aggressive heat-spike which left people unable to work. A report by the World Meteorological Organization said that Europe faced “rapid warming” and “dangerously high air temperatures”. America experienced its hottest March in 132 years of record-keeping.

The prosaic sounding HVAC is moving center stage. Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning is not just a ‘nice to have’, it is now often a matter of life and death. In the north, keeping warm was once the priority. Now keeping cool is.

Businesses spend inordinate amounts of money keeping buildings at the right temperature and workforces happy—up to 50% of an office block’s energy consumption is spent on heating or cooling. Climate volatility means sophisticated solutions to the hot/cold conundrum are in demand.

Artificial intelligence can help, as it can with most business systems. Knowing the strength of the sun, the strike angle of sunlight on a building and the depth of cloud cover all helps to regulate heat when you need it and cooling capability when temperatures soar.........

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