EVAPORATIVE COOLING - AN ASSESSMENT OF CALIFORNIA MARKET POTENTIAL AND ESTIMATED IMPACTS OF KEY DEPLOYMENT BARRIERS

The California Energy Commission has recognized evaporative cooling sp ace conditioning as a key demand-side ''Opportunity Technology,'' whic h offers compelling energy, economic development and environmental ben efits to the slate. In 1993, the Commission lead an effort to form an industry Collaborative of Stakeholders whose primary focus was to impr ove market penetration through the identification and elimination of t he key barriers to technology deployment. More recently,, the Commissi on has supported this objective through the funding of a statewide mar ket assessment of evaporative cooling in the residential and commercia l market segments with. Regional Economic Research, Inc. of San Diego, California under Contract No. 500-93-027. Summary data and results fr om this work are presented in this paper. Baseline forecasts of market shares and the associated energy impacts within the residential and c ommercial market segments, including new construction and existing fac ilities, were then developed for each statewide planning area and util ity climate zone in California. Thereafter, forecasts of the sensitivi ty of market shares and energy impacts to changes in key drivers (e.g. , awareness, technology costs, and select non-economic drivers) were g enerated to establish the relative importance of each of the technolog y market drivers. Finally, Achievable Potential was estimated in the f orm of market shares and associated energy savings, based upon assumpt ions with respect to the achievable reductions in evaporative cooling deployment barriers.