IEN was among the 139 teams from 31 countries who submitted a detailed technical submission for the Global Cooling Prize, which sets out to commercialize affordable cooling solutions with potential for five-times less climate impact. While IEN unfortunately were not among the eight finalists, we were encouraged to learn that our submission was very similar to cooling concept proposed by three of the eight finalists.
The finalists include some of the world’s largest air conditioner (AC) manufacturers, including Gree Electric Appliances Inc. of Zhuhai, Daikin Air Conditioning India Private Ltd., and Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. The finalists also included start-ups and corporations, including S&S Design Startup Solution Pvt. Ltd., Transaera Inc., M2 Thermal Solutions, Kraton Corporation; and Barocal Ltd, a new spin-out from a University of Cambridge lab. The eight teams selected pitched a wide range of technologies, including smart hybrid designs of vapor-compression designs, evaporative cooling designs, and solid-state cooling technologies that use little or no global warming refrigerants.
In the year ahead, the eight finalists will built their cooling system prototypes and have them tested under standardized conditions. In November 2020, the Global Cooling Prize winner will be announced and receive the USD1million prize money. Even more interesting will be to observe whether these energy efficient cooling solutions manage to become mainstream products. With the rapid increase in the demand for cooling globally, and with the climate crisis requiring urgent action, getting the cooling technology right for the future is paramount. The number of split air-conditioners (also called RAC) are projected to increase nearly 4-fold over the next 30 years, namely to 4.5 billion by 2050. These air-conditioners must be energy efficient and climate-friendly in our important fight to avoid ending up in an irreversible climate catastrophe!
IEN would like to thank Martin Zuckermaier (Germany) for a close, good and inspiring collaboration for this Global Cooling Prize submission.
Global Cooling Prize (click).
Map of 139 Technical Submissions.
IEN brainstorming for Global Cooling Prize.
The test results of the Global Cooling Prize prototypes is released. One of them perform significantly better that the strict competition criteria. Exciting! See video from Feb 2021: