Cooling-related electricity consumption patterns for small and medium businesses in California: Current impacts and future projections under climate change

As global temperatures rise, the need to cool commercial buildings will increase, and with it, electricity demand. In this research we focus on small and medium businesses (SMBs), which collectively employ half of the US workforce, and propose methods to identify responsiveness of an SMBs' electricity demand to warmer temperatures (temperature sensitivity). We also develop methods for projecting air conditioning adoption, temperature related demand, and hourly demand patterns using future climate change scenarios. We applied these methods to a unique dataset of 60,000 SMBs from California containing one year of hourly electricity demand for each establishment. We found evidence that SMB temperature sensitivity is related to a variety of factors including business activities, climate zones, and daily usage patterns. Climate projections through 2100 reveal significant and heterogeneous impacts on both temperature-related demand and air conditioning adoption and that these impacts are unequal. Areas that are lower income, more rural, and have higher proportions of populations living in disadvantaged communities are projected to have comparatively higher increases in SMB demand. These findings suggest that climate-related impacts on SMBs and their employees could be substantial and disparate in the future, as well as a need for policies that can address these inequalities.