Closer integration of low carbon heat systems with other renewable energy technologies could be a huge opportunity to rethink water heating with cooling in buildings, a recent summit has discussed.
The drive to think holistically about building decarbonisation by considering waste heat, along with renewable energy and storage systems, will present significant opportunities for integrated cooling.
A collaboration with a Rwanda-based sustainable cooling body will look at addressing the skills and technology challenges to deliver less carbon intensive cold chain operations.
Carrier is partnering with the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain (ACES) to develop training and technologies for use on the continent.
The company said it will work with experts at the centre to help build up the skills of refrigeration engineers and farmers to ensure more efficient, lower carbon solutions. Another aim of the partnership will be to demonstrate the possibilities for more efficient technologies and systems.
ACES, which is housed at the University of Rwanda, is focused on bringing together both global and regional expertise to create more sustainable methods of cooling across Africa focused on technology, financial incentives and policy.
It will now work with Carrier on expanding cold chains as a vital tool to tackle food insecurity. This will involve studying different lower carbon methods and how they might be used in different countries to provide cooling to protect critical supplies of goods and medicines.
ACES has been established through a collaboration between the Rwandan Government, the University of Birmingham and the UN Environment Programme’s United for Efficiency (UNEP U4E) initiative. The centre has already sought to scale up its work beyond Rwanda to look at how projects and programmes it develops might be exported to other countries in Africa and even further afield.
Toby Peters, a director at the Centre for Sustainable Cooling and professor of cold economy at the University of Birmingham and Heriot-Watt University, said the latest collaboration with Carrier would be an important means to try and tackle food loss.
Professor Toby Peters said that this work would have important impacts not only on public health, but also for protecting the environment.
He said: “Turning food loss into nutritionally available food is essential for Africa’s sustainable development, as well as building the food systems that are used to feed people in times of uncertainty. Global leaders have recently agreed that the only way to overcome food insecurity is by working together to create innovative partnerships within the global community.”
Carrier said that its work with ACES would build on other collaborations it was involved with across Africa. This included working with other companies and the UN World Food Programme to improve the effectiveness of existing logistics capabilities by creating a Transport Training Centre in Accra, Ghana.
Tim White, president of refrigeration with Carrier said: “We’re pleased to partner with ACES and WFP to make a meaningful difference across Africa, as the potential benefits of these collective efforts are far reaching and can positively impact the cold chain from farmers and manufacturers to consumers with wide-reaching benefits.”
The announcement that ACES will be working with Carrier coincides with the COP27 United Nations Climate Change Conference that is set to conclude later this week in Egypt.
UK MP Alok Sharma MP, outgoing president of the COP26 conference that was held in Glasgow last year, said the work of ACES was an important example of efforts to deliver sustainable cooling around the world.
He said: “Cooling and refrigeration are the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, especially in developing countries. But this challenge gives us the opportunity to develop innovative, energy efficient technologies of the future.”