The Growing Energy Challenge in Surabaya: Climate Change and Rising Energy Demands

With growing climate change, urban areas around the world-including Surabaya-are facing various tests and challenges related to the growing demand for energy. Research has shown that as global temperatures increase and weather patterns change, these extreme changes are great determinants in energy consumption, especially in burgeoning cities characterized by high population concentration. This factor is not only negative for environmental performance but also adds extra pressure on energy infrastructure, particularly in heavily energy-consuming cities like Surabaya.

A recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change brings into focus that energy consumption in urban buildings is increasingly influenced by climate change, technological changes, and socio-economic factors. Buildings, homes, and commercial properties consume approximately 39% of the nation's energy in the United States and 28% of its GHG emissions. This can be even higher in urban areas, particularly in highly densely populated cities. The prediction of the future trend in energy consumption in buildings is indispensable under increasing climate change influence. Regional energy consumption assessment methods usually always have problems in accuracy and large uncertainty.

This research underlines the need for more accurate approaches to city-specific understanding of building energy demand. Most of the existing models are built on generalized data that lack resolution for local, accurate assessments. Advanced computational tools, in view of these premises and limitations, will be called upon to capture the complex interplay among climate variables, technological development, and socio-economic trends. Such advanced computational capabilities will be able to formulate valid energy policies related to particular cities-like Surabaya-already experiencing adverse conditions due to climate change.

To better understand the real-life impact of climate change in Surabaya, we spoke with Shierly, a college student from Universitas Airlangga. She shared her firsthand experience of how the changing climate is affecting daily life in the city.

"The heat is unbearable," Shierly explains. "When the weather is this hot, it's hard to focus on anything but the discomfort. It affects my mood, and I get easily annoyed, especially when stuck in traffic."

Shierly emphasizes the impact of irregular weather patterns. "It feels like the rain doesn't come when it's supposed to. Sometimes, it pours heavily, but other times, it doesn't rain at all, and everything feels so dry. The heat feels even worse when it's dry."

"The intense heat not only makes daily activities harder," she says, "but it also affects everything else we do. It's exhausting to be out in this weather for even short periods. I feel it, and so does everyone around me."

A more refined approach to projecting future building energy consumption is through "bottom-up" studies, which use mathematical correlations between energy consumption rates and weather data. While this method provides some insight, it remains highly sensitive to the availability of high-resolution data, making it unsuitable for large-scale urban assessments, particularly in regions where detailed data is lacking.

In contrast, more advanced bottom-up engineering-based approaches offer a more robust solution. These models use hourly or sub-hourly physics-based simulations to more accurately capture energy use patterns. By calculating peak demand and analyzing energy consumption under different climatic conditions, these approaches provide a more comprehensive understanding of energy demands. They offer a clearer picture of how climate change, technology, and socio-economic factors will influence energy consumption patterns in urban environments, including Surabaya.

Reference

Wang, C., Song, J., Shi, D., Reyna, J. L., Horsey, H., Feron, S., Zhou, Y., Ouyang, Z., Li, Y., & Jackson, R. B. (2023, 10 18). Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use. Nature Climate Change, 14, 16. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41458-5