(Credit: Cooling as a Service Initiative)Cooling as a Service (CaaS) is gathering momentum as demand for sustainable cooling accelerates; nearly 20 companies in Africa, Asia and LAC are pursuing CaaS projects, according to the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE), a Swiss not-for-profit foundation. Already, 36,000 metric tons of CO2 have been saved by the CaaS model, with more than half a million to be saved over the next 15 years from the existing projects, BASE says.
The CaaS model brings global finance and technology companies together with end-users to make low carbon cooling more competitive. It uses a pay-per-use model applicable to multiple sectors across the world, including real estate, industrial manufacturing, public and private buildings, and cold-storage for health and food.
Innovative financial structures will help scale up the model, according to BASE. For example, for debt finance, both the cooling equipment and the CaaS contract can serve as collateral, making investments in CaaS a secure way for investors to rapidly grow their ESG financing portfolio with stable, long-term contracts.
CaaS financing works similarly to Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
Interest in the model is expected to continue growing significantly, as the cooling market reaches more than $1.5 trillion in investments over the next 10 years.
Cooling is considered a major challenge in tackling global climate change. Air conditioning alone accounts for 10% of global electricity consumption. As the climate warms, cheap and inefficient cooling systems are becoming more prolific. The proliferation of such inefficient systems is “one of the greatest challenges of the climate emergency and this model will prove vital to tackling it,” says Thomas Motmans, sustainable energy finance specialist for BASE.
Already, the CaaS Alliance, a group of organizations committed to growing the model worldwide, has over 50 members.
Dr. Oetker in South Africa, a producer and importer of frozen foods, wanted to increase its production and storage capacity as its existing facility was running out of space. Their new plant in Selby, Johannesburg, required significant amounts of cooling at different temperatures for its process and holding areas.
To address this need, Energy Partners Refrigeration signed a CaaS contract with Dr. Oetker to supply cost and environmentally efficient cooling to the process areas, freezers and cold rooms at the new production facility. This cooling is delivered on a pay-per-use basis using a refrigeration plant working with ammonia, one of the cleanest available refrigerants.
Through the CaaS agreement, the cooling service is provided with no upfront cost to the client and, when compared to a baseline cooling system, has enabled up to 1,200 metric tons of CO2 to be saved annually, which translates to 18,000 metric tons over the 15-year contract period. The cold rooms are now running efficiently with an estimated 20% lower energy cost, and zero maintenance costs.
