Keeping Cities Cool in a Warmer Future

Virtual power plants are emerging in the United States and partnering with utility companies to manage energy demand during extreme weather and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These plants are actually a portfolio of energy resources, anything from smart appliances in homes to solar panels and electric vehicle infrastructure outside of homes, that are tracked and managed digitally. This enables virtual power plants to encourage minimal peak energy use, increase the amount of renewable energy sent back to the grid, and decrease the use of peaker power plants that rely on fossil fuels.

The Office of Heat Response and Mitigation works to address the urban heat effect caused by intense summer temperatures. The Office has worked on several practices like coating streets and surfaces in light-colored, water-based asphalt treatments that reflect sunlight and absorb less heat than standard pavement. So far, 100 miles of residential roads have been covered in the treatment and roads with the treatment have an average surface temperature that is 10.5 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit lower than traditional asphalt.

Bulk-purchase "group-buy" programs for heat pumps have achieved 15-30% cost savings for participants, and on Gabriola Island, over 1,000 units have been installed, making carbon-free heating and cooling more accessible.

The Texas Trees Foundation is bringing thousands of trees to Dallas communities experiencing the worst of the urban heat island effect to help keep them cool. The organization supplies the trees and teaches residents how to care for them.

Vienna’s cool streets provide a safe outdoor space to escape the heat in the summer. The city used a heat map and population data to select streets with high concentrations of residents who are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat, like children and the elderly. At the selected locations, traffic was limited and asphalt was covered with turf, benches, mist machines, and water fountains. When the city challenged the project, a citizen’s initiative in the Ottakring district worked with the local council to keep one cool street open last summer, saving a public safe outdoor space.

Medellín, Colombia, is combating the urban heat island effect by creating green corridors across the city. Over 2.5 million plants and trees were carefully selected to maximize impact and planted on buildings and along roads and waterways.

Seville has implemented three innovative water-based cooling solutions—ancient Persian qanat technology, adiabatic cooling systems in 450+ schools, and urban evapotranspiration projects—that collectively reduce temperatures by 6-12°C in public spaces and buildings while using minimal energy and attracting international attention as replicable models for heat adaptation.

To address shade inequality and rising heat deaths, the American Forests launched a digital tool in 2021 that scores geographic areas based on tree canopy and surface temperature, as well as other factors such as income, employment, race, age and health. It then calculates a Tree Equity Score and maps out the regions that have the greatest need for trees. With this information, Tucson aims to plant one million trees by 2030, and has already planted 120,000 over the past four years.

Innovators are developing new air conditioning units to keep people cool as temperatures and humidity rise without contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Alongside improved energy efficiency, the new tech focuses on sensing and reducing humidity in real-time and adjusting itself as humidity fluctuates throughout the day.

To protect tenants from extreme heat, lawmakers in Montgomery County, Maryland, passed a policy requiring landlords to provide air conditioning capable of cooling units to at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit from June through September.