Because of the climate changes, the number of hot days in the US will increase and the electrical network might not be able to meet this increase in demand, until the end of the century, warn the researchers from the University of California in Berkeley, according to AFP.

According to a study published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)”, the necessary investments to increase the capacities of the electricity supply infrastructure could reach 180 billion dollars.

“To the extent that the power grid is built to meet a maximum demand, our findings have important implications for the future construction of the capabilities needed to meet these increases in consumption”, said the university researchers.

On the other side, they explained that there would be a variable electricity consumption, depending on the region, in the US, the second largest electricity producer and consumer after China.

“In the Northeast the demand will diminish, because there could be increasingly less very cold days during the winter, but it is likely to increase in the south and southwest, which will increasingly have to suffer from the periods of extreme heat”, say the researchers.

According to the mathematical model used by the scientists, the average annual electricity consumption will grow by around 2.8% by the year 2100.

“If people continue to burn coal and oil at the current rate, without any effort to reduce the resulted emissions of greenhouse gas, the need for electricity of the US, in order to meet that increased demand could advance by 18% at the end of the century, in comparison with the current period, requiring an investment of 180 billion dollars”, the researchers explained.

The increasing exploitation of the solar energy can allow the satisfaction of a part of this growth in demand for electricity, the study reveals, according to the quoted source.