Hot climatic conditions, a growing construction sector, and increasing per capita income are expected to drive unprecedented demand for air conditioning in India. Over the coming decade living standards are expected to increase for millions of Indians, while an estimated 70% of buildings that will exist in 2030 will be built.
Unless guided by appropriate choices of energy-efficient technology, clean energy generation options, and climate-friendly refrigerants, India’s air conditioning boom could create significant challenges for the country’s energy supply and greatly increase its contribution to climate change.
Key industry stakeholders, including manufacturers of air conditioners, have acknowledged the need for more efficient and climate-friendly cooling solutions. But, due to the perceived expense of these solutions and other financial and implementation barriers, businesses and end users have yet to embrace cleaner technologies.
To tackle this issue, the Coalition’s Finance initiative is working with actors from across India’s cooling sector to establish a dedicated technical assistance facility. Based on the findings of stakeholder workshops, the facility will highlight the business and financing case for sustainable cooling technologies and strategies to drive demand within industry.
India could leapfrog current air conditioner technology for new technologies that are far more energy-efficient and that use HFC alternative refrigerants with low-global warming potential. However, several market factors are preventing the widespread adoption of new refrigerants and technologies:
Awareness raising and technical support are key to tackling these issues and accelerating transformation in the cooling industry.
The Coalition’s Finance initiative is currently assessing financing options that will make low-global warming potential and energy-efficient cooling technologies available and affordable in India.
Based on its findings, the initiative will set up a dedicated technical assistance facility that will provide support to key stakeholders to remove the financial and implementation barriers preventing use of alternative cooling technologies.
The initiative is providing support to the Indian strategy firm, cBalance, and Frankfurt School of Management & Finance to conduct a complete analysis of India’s cooling sector.
The analysis will take into consideration the various interests of the sector’s stakeholders, including financial institutions, energy services companies, financial service providers in retail and investment/private equity banking, commercial manufacturers of sustainable cooling technologies, professionals engaged in technical consulting for integrating sustainable cooling systems in buildings and, most importantly, consumers in real-estate and other industries.
Through a series of preliminary investigative workshops, which will build on intelligence about the cooling industry gathered from previous national survey projects, the Coalition will engage with these stakeholders using a collective-intelligence co-creation processes.
Lead Partner: A Coalition partner with an active role in coordinating, monitoring and guiding the work of an initiative.
Implementer: A Coalition partner or actor receiving Coalition funds to implement an activity or initiative.
This document outlines the theory that will bring about the change of mainstreaming adoption of non-fluorinated-refrigerant cooling technologies through a technical assistance (TA) facility. The...
The Frankfurt School UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance and its local partner cBalance are conducting a study on behalf of the Coalition on “...
