Climatic change mitigation: analysis of electrical fans usage impact on dwellers heat stress

Abstract

Climate change is responsible for a consistent increase in ambient temperatures, leading to social and health problems for individuals residing indoors. The effect should be seriously considered by authorities, especially regarding people’s health; high temperatures can be very dangerous for elder people and in general for vulnerable categories. Mitigation approaches are important in case of heat waves that are expected to increase in frequency and intensity due to climatic change effects. One approach for avoiding such a problem is to install cooling systems, but sometimes this isn’t a viable solution, for example in case of low-income families which cannot afford the expense for the installation and the bill costs for running such systems. An alternative solution is using electric ventilators and the main objective of this paper is to revise the effect of electric fans and assess if they can be useful for mitigating the heat effect on people inside buildings. The results showed that the number of hours with people exposed to heat strain, in the worst-case scenario, dropped from 168 without a fan to 13 with an active fan, confirming the positive effect of this system.