Financing climate-friendly cooling technology in India

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.

Challenges

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:

  • A lack of technical awareness of off-the-shelf technologies and systems with a verifiable track record of performance
  • The absence of a cooperatively-organized and thriving sustainable-cooling services industry
  • Efforts to challenge the relevance of alternative technologies
  • Low incentive to change technologies and practices in residential buildings
  • The perception that cost savings and energy savings cannot be achieved by alternative technologies

Awareness raising and technical support are key to tackling these issues and accelerating transformation in the cooling industry.

Objectives

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. 

What we're doing

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. 

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Tags
Regions
Asia and the Pacific
Pollutants (SLCPs)
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
Themes
Cooling

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