Cooling: A Sleeping Giant? Paving the way for a sustainable future

On 19 June 2017, more than 50 stakeholders interested in sustainable and clean cooling attended in Brussels the coolingEU Launch Event, entitled ‘Cooling: A Sleeping Giant? Paving the way for a sustainable future’.

The workshop was divided in two sessions. One focused on the current state of cooling and the second one explored the characteristics of the different cooling sectors.

Andrea Voigt, EPEE, moderated the first session. The session started with a global perspective on cooling (with the keynote of Brian Holuj, UN Environment), narrowed down to a European approach (with the intervention of Ewout Deurwaarder, European Commission), then followed by an update on the situation of cooling from an academic perspective (by Prof. Kostadin Fikiin, Technical University of Sofia). Ingo Wagner, Euroheat & Power, closed the first session with a presentation introducing coolingEU and its latest developments.

The second session, moderated by Thomas Nowak, EHPA, drew a picture of the different cooling sectors, from the food sector (Cristine Weijer, ECSLA), to the manufacturing industries (Klaus Peters, ESTEP) and buildings (Anne-Claire Streck, ECTP) to demand response (Jayson Dong, SEDC).

The main takeaways from the workshop are:

• The use of cooling covers a large variety of sectors and industries and its demand is growing rapidly, not only in Europe but also globally.
• Without a substantial leap in visibility, an increase of research efforts, a prospering environment for sustainable solutions and strengthened cooperation of all involved, the impact on the climate and the energy system is unpredictable.
• At the European level, cooling specific policy and reliable data are lacking.
• The cooling sectors create jobs for almost 12 million employees around the world.
• The refrigeration sector (including air conditioning) accounts for about 17% of the worldwide electricity consumption.
• Giving the high energy demand for cooling, it is a matter of urgency to supply it in an efficient and sustainable way. This needs to be addressed effectively in order to achieve an efficient, competitive and secure energy system and ensure the success of the EU targets for efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. The time for action is now!

Therefore, coolingEU:

1. Calls on Member States and European Institutions to recognise the importance of cooling and to address the development of the cooling market.
2. Calls for system-level approach for heating and cooling to be included in the European energy policy.
3. Calls on the EU to raise awareness on the importance of cooling among energy planners and citizens.
4. Calls for European Institutions to increase the targeted funding of Research and Innovation in the field of sustainable and efficient cooling and invest in Research and
   Development (R&D).
5. Calls for the inclusion of cooling in statistics and coordinated collections of data.

For more information and the workshop presentations, click here.