ACR Journal

April | May 2020 SUSTAINABLE COOLING 34 Volume 6 No.3 appliances and integrating renewable electricity. And we will be to able understand the skills and capacity required to meet the technology demand. As such, the data from robust cooling needs assessment will underpin the development of comprehensive and robust country-specific cooling action plans delivering access to cooling for the benefit of all who need. However, a key challenge is that we do not “think thermally”. When we talk energy, we inherently mean electricity, and when we talk energy storage we mean batteries. Yet much of energy demand is thermal, and cooling in the global south and could be better served by thermal strategies and thermal storage, rather than simply greening electricity. Cooling for All is not only urgent, it is also complex. Developing sustainable and equitable solutions requires a holistic approach and a complete understanding of the need across agricultural, medical, and energy sectors. The purpose of the Cooling for All Needs-based Assessment framework - to be published this Spring - is to provide governments with a blueprint and methodology to understand those needs and better define a country’s Cooling Action Plan and fit for market solutions which • contributes to achieving safe thermal comfort for people, preservation of products and produce (medicines, food and others), and effective and efficient processes (data centres, industrial or agricultural production) for the benefit of all who need it and • delivers this in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Intervention Area Example Behaviour Change Maintenance to ensure existing appliances operate to maximum efficiency Ensuring optimum or acceptable temperature settings Demand Mitigation Using urban planning, natural shading, good building design, natural ventilation Improving insulation, cool roofs, etc. Efficiency improvements Improving the efficiency of existing appliances, control systems Using thermal storage for time of use energy manage- ment Recovering waste heat into co-located service, eg: hot wa- ter for cleaning and washing applications in pack-houses Demand Aggregation Eg: Community cooling hubs. District cooling Natural Energy Resources Using evaporative cooling, sky cooling, river or deep water Using low grade geothermal to drive sorption chillers Waste Energy Resources Making use of waste industrial or commercial heat and waste cold using different technologies System Intervention Making modal shifts (road to rail or even road to drones) Thermal networks UK experts recently visited Delhi, Haryana and Hyderabad to work out the most effective way of helping farmers to increase economic wellbeing by making the most of improved crop post-harvest management and clean, sustainable chilled distribution systems and Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. There is a significant probability that if countries fail to ask and answer these questions any thermal planning will be inadequate and will prevent both SDGs and climate targets from being achieved. Conversely by properly understanding the portfolio of cooling demand (for food, health and thermal comfort), economic and social development and the environment are aligned. Led by UK universities, the aim of the Centre for Sustainable Cooling (CSC)is to allow the use of radical new cooling solutions to help small-holder farmers, medicine suppliers and others make the most of clean and sustainable chilled distribution systems. The CSC will look to transform research into affordable technology, working through global partners including Kyushu University, Japan; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Norwegian University of Science and Technology; CEPT India, Technical University – Sofia; Institute of Engineering Thermophysics (IET), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and University of Science and Technology Beijing, plus UK universities such as Aston, Birmingham, Brighton, Brunel, Heriot-Watt, London South Bank and Loughborough.