“Cooling as a Service: A Multi-Billion Dollar Green Pipeline Opportunity”

The webinar was the second of a series from the “Climate Business, Innovation and Trends Webinar Series”, this time jointly hosted by the IFC Climate Business Department, New Products Team and the the world Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). The session begun with a presentation on CaaS, followed by a panel session featuring  Thomas Motmans from BASE, Dave Mackerness from KAER, and Dawie Kriel from Energy Partners Refrigeration. It was moderated by Martina Bosi from ESMAP, and closed by Steven Baillie from the IFC. 

The session welcomed more than 140 professionals (from Asia, Africa, Americas and Europe) and provided a platform for the financing community to share and discuss the progress, benefits and strong opportunity provided by Cooling as a Service (CaaS) for the built environment. BASE shared on-the-ground insights from the CaaS Initiative it is leading, drawing attention to the successful application of servitisation to the cooling industry, and to the potential for servitisation to contribute to generating a pipeline of green projects. 

During the panel, Mackerness and Kriel shared the size of their portfolios operating under the CaaS approach, jointly representing more than $60 million dollars by 2022. Their experience from the market demonstrated how CaaS represents a solid opportunity for profitable green investments leveraging energy efficiency. 

Motmans further elaborated on how CaaS differs from Energy Performance Contracts and how the model is unlocking not only opportunities in  commercial and industrial projects but also in small-scale, off-grid refrigeration applications, delivering crucial emission reductions and massive positive impacts on local communities.

Mackerness also outlined the importance and value of digitalisation and data quality in reducing operation risks, enabling a controlled portfolio asset management approach and avoiding the need to request minimum consumptions towards customers. Kriel also shared their learnings on mitigating projects’ risks in industrial refrigeration projects applied with CaaS.

The conversation then outlined how both companies (KAER and EPR) structured the financing of their CaaS projects, from the early days together with shareholder equity, up to today with Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) bundling projects and funds from private investors and debt.

To view the recordings of the webinar please click here: https://lnkd.in/gSxfHWm

For more information on KAER’s CaaS case studies, click here; for more information on EPR’s case studies, click here.

KAER is also featured on a BBC Story works documentary: view here

EPR recently released a video on one of their CaaS applications: view here.