Why the fuck does extreme heat require turning off the AC?

dranudin 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The A/C cannot keep up the load, due to the exteme heat. So they decided to just not cool one part of the building, to be able to keep cooling the other part .. It is now interesting who was in which part ;)

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forgotaccount3 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Clearly those in floors 1->7 were less important and thus allowed to take the day off and/or work remotely, right?

	▲	alistairSH an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It was 4pm on Friday, so yes, they were probably heading home already.

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mytailorisrich 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If that's the case then the building's system was very badly designed...

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gwbas1c an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It was designed for historical, pre-climate-change weather. (Or at least when those were in the know about climate change thought we'd solve it.)

	▲	mytailorisrich an hour ago \| parent [-]
		There's probably a "Belgian joke" to be made if their AC is only designed to work when it isn't hot...

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alistairSH an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That seems true - it's not a historic building - it was built in the mid- to late-1960s.

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gwbas1c an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because a lot of electric grids are too old to handle the increased load.

To translate: When it's hot, air conditioners use more electricity. This is because they use more electricity because they have to work harder to keep a cool temperature.

The reason why electric grids are too old to handle the load is because:

Electric grids were built for smaller populations with the assumption that we'll build more as we make more babies; AND; electric grids weren't built to handle the temperature rise from climate change.

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pgalvin 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The article indicates they were unable to handle the increased electricity load, which caused blackouts.

Additionally, sometimes unnaturally high temperatures break AC systems put in place with poor planning. This is very common in UK supermarkets every summer.

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ctoth 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> unnaturally high temperatures

> poor planning.

> very common in UK supermarkets every summer.

What?

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SiempreViernes 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Global warming keeps making the temperature unnaturaly high, don't tell me you didn't hear about it.

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ctoth 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If it's every summer, how is it unnatural? If it's poor planning how is it every summer? There's poor planning and then there's ... what, forgetting that summer happens? It sounds to me like somebody sat down and penciled in some numbers and decided that "it makes less money to let it break?" which seems pretty weird when you consider second-order stuff (but it's not like people tend to do that anyway)

	▲	SiempreViernes 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Come on, you expect me to believe you honestly have no contextual knowledge about the changing climate? No, I think you are opting for disguising your full on climate change denial under a tattered veil of feigned ignorance.

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black3r 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

my guess is that the outdoor AC unit reached its maximum working temperature...

since we're not that used to extreme heat in EU, units with max working temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius are pretty common and the air around the AC unit is warmer than regular outdoors air, doubly so if they're placed on the ground and the glass from the building reflects some additional heat from the sun.

the risk of this was broadcasted in our local news for home AC owners when the forecast reached 40, as lots of apartments have the AC on partly glass-encased balconies, or on walls facing direct sunlight...

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wongarsu 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Based on the little information provided the AC can't keep up. So they cut off the lower half of the building to provide better cooling to the other half

	▲	ceejayoz 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Which, as heat rises, is probably reasonable.

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nickff 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Seems like power shortages:

>”The European Parliament has also faced blackouts this week due to energy consumption from cranking up its cooling system.”

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basisword 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Presumably the AC systems themselves couldn't operate in that extreme heat. A lot of grocery stores in the UK, which are icy cold usually, had major issues with AC and refrigeration systems failing - I think because a lot of the equipment is on the roof and exposed to the heat.

	▲	pkaye 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Its pretty common to se the AC systems on the top of roofs on big buildings in the US. From what I read, exposing the AC condenser unit to the sun should have minimal impact. Air flow through the condenser unit matters the most. Perhaps they were undersized for the extreme heat now happening in the UK.
	▲	lstodd 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		AC systems don't quite care about direct sunlight, they are forced air heat exchangers. Now if the condenser (rooftop) side is undersized and therefore inadequate given elevated ambient air temperature all you can do is shut down a portion of evaporation side (the cold one) off, or the entire system just stops working. Alternatively one can install water sprinkers on roofs like they do in China.