As the summer breezes fade, sweltering Europeans give air conditioning a skeptical embrace

abcnews.go.com:

Floriana Peroni’s vintage clothing store had to close for a week during Europe’s heat wave last month

MILAN — During Europe's heat wave last month, Floriana Peroni’s vintage clothing store had to close for a week. A truck of rented generators blocked her door as they fed power to the central Roman neighborhood hit by a blackout as temperatures surged. The main culprit: air conditioning.

The period — in which temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) — coincided with peak electricity use that came close to Italy’s all-time high, hitting a peak load of more than 59 gigawatts on July 19. That neared a July 2015 record.

Intensive electricity use knocked out the network not only near the central Campo de Fiori neighborhood, where Peroni operates her shop, but elsewhere in the Italian capital. Demand in that second July week surged 30%, correlating to a heat wave that had persisted already for weeks, according to the capital’s electricity company ARETI.

Like many Romans, Peroni herself does not have AC either in her home or her shop. Rome once could count on a Mediterranean breeze to bring down nighttime temperatures, but that has become an intermittent relief at best.

“At most, we turn on fans,’’ Peroni said. “We think that is enough. We tolerate the heat, as it has always been tolerated.”

In Europe, though, that is starting to change.

AIR CONDITIONING IS LESS A PART OF THE CULTURE IN EUROPE

Despite holdouts like Peroni, rising global temperatures are dropping air conditioning from luxury to a necessity in many parts of Europe, which long has had a conflicted relationship with energy-sucking cooling systems deemed by many to be an American indulgence.

Europeans look with disdain at overcooled U.S.