A contest to develop more efficient and climate friendly household cooling systems
New Delhi,
November 15: Eight teams of innovators from different parts of the world have
been selected for an international competition to develop more efficient and
climate-friendly cooling solutions for residential buildings.
The competition aims to intensify
research in the field of clean energy.
The contest
is being organised by a global coalition led by Indian Government’s Department
of Science and Technology, US-based Rocky Mountain Institute and Mission
Innovation, an international initiative of 24 countries and European Union that
is aimed to accelerate research in the area of clean energy.
A total of
2,100 registrations from 95 countries were received for the contest and of them
445 teams submitted their preliminary ideas. Out of them, 139 teams from 31
countries followed through with detailed technical proposals. Now, eight of
them have been selected to go further to the final round of the contest. The
selected teams would develop prototypes based on their proposals and these
would be field tested in India during
the next summer.
The winners of the Global Cooling Awards
will be announced in November 2020
The eight
were today presented with a US dollar 200,000 award to help them translate
their ideas into prototypes. The final winner will be announced in November
2020. The final award called Global Climate Prize, will carry a money component
of US dollar one million.
The finalists
teams are led by some of the
world’s largest air conditioner (AC) manufacturers, including Gree Electric
Appliances Inc. of Zhuhai, Daikin AirConditioning India Private Ltd., and
Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.; start-ups and corporations, including S&S Design
Startup Solution Pvt. Ltd., Transaera Inc., M2 Thermal Solutions, Kraton
Corporation; and Barocal Ltd, a new spin-out from a University of Cambridge
lab.
Presenting
the awards to the selected finalists, the Union Minister for Science and
Technology, Earth Sciences and Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Harsh Vardhan
said the initiative aligned with the objectives of the India Cooling Action
Plan that the Central Government released earlier this year to give a boost to
research and development in the area of global climate change and strengthen
the country’s commitment to accelerate clean energy innovations.
He said that
innovations and new technologies in cooling industry was especially crucial for
India as studies showed that the demand for comfort cooling is expected to
drive the stock of room ACs in the country to over one billion by 2050, marking
a 40-fold growth from 2016.
United
Kingdom High Commissioner to India, Mr. Dominic Asquith, Secretary, Department
of Science and Technology, Dr. Ashutosh Sharma,
Director General, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Mr. Abhay Bakre, and
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ms. Geeta
Menon, among other things, hoped the Global Cooling Prize programme would help
in bringing out a solution that would offer better cooling efficiency with low
or no global warming potential.
By
Sunderarajan Padmanabhan
(India Science Wire)
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