Rising incomes, urbanization, and a warming planet are going to drive unprecedented growth in demand for comfort cooling from 1.2 billion room air conditioners (RACs) today, to over 4.5 billion by 2050. If we fail to innovate today, this growth in cooling demand will significantly exacerbate our climate crisis, while also placing a massive burden on the electricity grids and the consumers. Under a business-as-usual scenario, RACs alone could add about 132 GT of CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions cumulatively between now and 2050, resulting in over 0.5°C of global warming by the year 2100, leaving millions of people exposed to potentially dangerous heat conditions without an affordable and sustainable cooling solution.

Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), USA are inviting world’s innovators to apply for Global Cooling Prize and solve the critical climate threat that comes from growing demand for residential air-conditioning. This innovation challenge aims to shine a spotlight on a breakthrough residential cooling technology that will have at least 5X less climate impact than standard technology in operation today (considering both energy and refrigerant impacts), cost no more than 2X of the standard AC unit in India on the market at assessed industrial scale, and operate under other constraints defined by the prize criteria.

The Global Cooling Prize was launched by Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Hon’ble Union Minister of Science & Technology, Earth Sciences, Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India in November of 2018 and is now open for applications from innovators around the globe. The competition will run for two years and disburse at least US$3 million in interim and final awards to best innovative residential cooling technologies which demonstrate performance. Scaling the winning technology could be one of the most effective technology-enabled steps that can take to mitigate climate change, helping to avoid up to 0.5ºC in global warming.

The Global Cooling Prize is supported by the Government of India, through Department of Science & Technology (DST) under Mission Innovation Challenge 7: Affordable Heating and Cooling Challenge. The Indian Government organizations such as Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power (MoP), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), and NITI Aayog are also partnering to support the Global Cooling Prize.

You can apply today by registering at globalcoolingprize.org/apply. The Preliminary Application Deadline is June 2019.

Please direct all your prize-related queries at info@globalcoolingprize.org