BASE presents Cooling as a Service (CaaS) and CaaS incubator company Koolboks pitches in front of the audience and the potential investors at the Cooling Investment Forum organised by PFAN and K-CEP.

CONTEXT

Electricity used for cooling is a major contributor to climate change and the impacts are set to increase as many of the the more than 1 billion people globally who lack access to energy will need some forms of cooling as well. Fortunately, there are many opportunities to provide lower-carbon, more effective cooling and refrigeration with vastly reduced climate impacts.

COOLING INVESTMENT FORUM

PFAN and Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP) hosted Cooling Investment Forum which took place in a two-day virtual event on 24 and 26 March 2021, where five projects on clean and efficient cooling solutions were showcased to potential investors. The two-day event was joined by 318 participants from 66 different countries. The main participants were project developers and others from the private sector, and a number of representatives from NGOs/civil society, investors, governments and academia were also in virtual attendance.

The forum’s first day started with remarks by Alois Mhalanga, Chief of the Climate Technologies & Innovations Division at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and Dan Hamza-Goodacre, Non-Executive Director at the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Programme (K-CEP).  They both emphasised the importance of the cooling sector in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation, highlighting that, beyond energy benefits, clean and efficient cooling is critical for achieving a number of development goals including for storage and transport of food, shelf life of medicines, overall health and livelihoods.

Afterwards, Carla Della Maggiora, from BASE, introduced the ‘Cooling as a Service’ (CaaS) delivery model as an example of market transformation of the cooling industry towards its servitisation. Ms. Della Maggiore underlined that “CaaS is a key element to a circular economy” and that “CaaS is going to revolutionise the industry as renewables did”, highlighting the key role of these kinds of business models.

During the second day of the forum, five cooling projects, including Koolboks – a CaaS incubator company – were pitched in front of the audience and the potential investors, followed by a Q&A session with the investors, which covered both financial and technological aspects.

The following companies presented, please click the links to access their Project Teasers:

• Inficold India Pvt Limited (India) focuses on solar cooking for industrial wp-contentlications.
• Koolboks (Nigeria) has a patentable technology based on off-grid solar energy and ice storage.
• Sokofresh Agri Innovations East Africa Ltd (Kenya) integrates cold storage and market linkage activities into smallholder farmer value chains through an as-a-service proposition.
• Oorja Energy Engineering Pvt Ltd (India) offers an energy efficient structure cooling system for buildings.
• ACI Agrolink Limited (Bangladesh) intends to develop a climate resilient sustainable shrimp value chain.

RECORDED EVENT

Watch the full PFAN Cooling Investment Forum on Youtube:

• Day 1

• Day 2