Estimates of daily electrical cooling load for a city of 800 000 are developed based on the relationship between weather variables and daily-average electricity consumption over 1 year The relationship is found to be nearly linear above a threshold temperature Temperature and humidity were found to be the largest at 59% and second largest at 21% contributors to electrical cooling load Direct normal irradiation intercepted by a vertical cylinder DNI sin theta was found to be a useful explanatory variable when modeling aggregates of buildings without a known or dominant orientation The best study case model used DNI sin theta and diffuse horizontal irradiation (DHI) as distinct explanatory variables with annual electrical cooling load contributions of 9% and 11% respectively Although the seasonal variation in electrical cooling load is large - on peak summer days more than 1 5 times the winter base load - the combined direct and diffuse solar contribution is essentially flat through the year a condition at odds with the common assumption that solar cooling always provides a good match between supply and demand The final model gives an electrical cooling load estimate for Abu Dhabi Island that corresponds to 40% of the total annual electrical load and 61% on the peak day (C) 2010 Elsevier BV All rights reserved