India is likely to service about 13 million tonnes of refrigeration demand for space cooling in new buildings through district cooling systems by 2037-38, according to two new studies released by Energy Efficiency Services Ltd on Monday.

The two studies were conducted by EESL in collaboration with Global Environment Facility (GEF) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with PwC as the knowledge partner. Both the studies explore the adoption of efficient and climate-friendly space cooling technologies which can potentially reduce the energy requirements and environmental impacts associated with their use.

Wide-scale adoption

Using policy thrusts to develop and drive wide-scale adoption, district cooling systems could serve about approximately 51 million tonnes of space cooling demand in buildings by 2038, the studies say.

“If this level of demand were served by district cooling, an estimated 25 GW of peak power demand could be reduced in the heart of cities, 27 million tonnes of CO2 and 4,361 tonnes of refrigerant avoided and annual energy savings of 32 terawatt-hours,” one of the studies says.

“However, very strong policies and regulatory mechanisms would be required to trigger such market development and the study projects a more realistic scenario that 13 million tonnes of refrigeration is established by 2038 albeit still with significant policy support,” EESL said in a statement.

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