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1.9.2021

Companies around the world rallying to implement Cooling as a Service

The Cooling as a Service Initiative, led by the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE) with the financial support of the philanthropic organisation Clean Cooling Collaborative formerly known as K-CEP (the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program), has brought efforts to support the market to adopt the model of Cooling as a Service and accelerate the path to clean and efficient cooling around the world.

 

Today, BASE is aware of at least 18 companies across 4 continents integrating Cooling as a Service in their operations. These companies vary from providing large systems for air conditioning or industrial refrigeration (as used in large infrastructure projects), to decentralised off-grid cold rooms (5-100Metric Tons) applied to the agriculture sector, and smaller systems (150-1000 Litres fridges and freezers) used in food markets or healthcare for the storage of medicine or vaccines.

 

For large systems, Kaer based in Singapore has been a pioneer in offering CaaS. Today the company counts more than 36MUSD of assets under management. In collaboration with BASE, a case study was published in 2020 for their project executed in India with Elpro Business Park (see here). There, Kaer provided the customer with state-of-the-art cooling powered by solar energy while instantaneously delivering a 30% increase in efficiency. 

 

Energy Partners Refrigeration (EPR), a company based in South Africa, is another company that has been growing their CaaS portfolio and accelerating the path to clean, efficient and solar powered cooling. Today they own and operate more than 10MUSD worth of CaaS projects.

 

Both KAER and EPR participated in a panel webinar organised by the IFC in May 2021, whereby they showcased their CaaS portfolio and the benefits to their clients (the recording of the webinar can be viewed here).

 

In a similar manner, MGM Innova Group, a Private Equity firm based in Colombia, has been implementing CaaS in real estate in the city of Medellin and is looking to grow their portfolio. In partnership with BASE, a case study was published in 2020 and can be viewed here

 

For smaller systems, ColdHubs based in Nigeria has been revolutionising cold storage for farmers. The service provides customers with a pay-per-crate cooling storage service, which drastically reduces the amount of food spoilage in the region (from 50% down to less than 10%). The company is also considering extending the service to transport in order to further reduce the percentage of food spoilage which occurs during the transport of goods.

 

Similarly to ColdHubs, SokoFresh in Kenya, as well as Oorja Solutions and Ecozen Solutions in India have been providing solar powered cold-storage solutions for local farmers with CaaS.

 

As part of the CaaS initiative, BASE has launched an incubator that supported five companies to integrate the model into their operations. Today, CoolCrop in India, KoolBoks in Nigeria, Grupo Clima in Costa Rica, CoolingTech in Grenada and BGH in Argentina all offer CaaS as a commercially available product. KoolBoks recently signed a contract with the Delta State Government in Nigeria, to provide cooling to local health care facilities with CaaS (the news can be read here).

 

As the CaaS Alliance is growing, with more than 65 companies on board, more companies are continuously exploring CaaS as a way to provide cooling with state-of-the-art technology. Today, these include Trane, Engie, Schneider Electric, Daikin, Carrier and Johnson Controls who with their global presence can have an accelerated impact on the market. Some real estate developers like Grupo Gentor in Mexico, are also actively looking to integrate CaaS into their projects. 

 

The map below shows where the companies are offering CaaS:

For more information on the projects please contact the CaaS team at info@energy-base.org.