This archive report was first published on 24 May 2020.
As the world grapples with the challenges of climate change, innovative solutions are emerging to provide cooling for rural communities. New Delhi-based New Leaf Dynamic Technologies has developed a refrigerator powered by farm waste, abundantly available in the countryside.
The company has won a grant to use the same technology to design an ice-maker, which can produce 1,000 kg a day. This off-grid innovation could provide much-needed cooling methods for about 2 billion people living without reliable power or unable to afford conventional products, said Larry Bentley of Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA).
"Affordable refrigeration in off-grid communities will be more than a cool drink. It will, in a small way, change the world," because of wider benefits such as improved nutrition and education, Bentley told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
According to scientists, globally, temperatures have already risen by about 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times and could climb further if the world does not step up efforts to curb planet-heating emissions. Warming is fast approaching the most ambitious goal of 1.5C (2.7F) set in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, beyond which lie rising seas, catastrophic weather events like droughts and floods and the loss of species.
Another company, Solar Cooling Engineering, is developing a solar-powered ice-maker that can produce 100-120 kg of ice a day. The company's Julian Kruger said that, on Kenya's coast, people suffer up to five power cuts per day, and farmers selling milk or fisherman selling their catch "have a huge problem".
EWB-USA has launched a $300,000 "Chill Challenge" to fund the development of prototypes for low-cost community refrigerators and ice-makers. The winners, including New Leaf Dynamic Technologies and Solar Cooling Engineering, will receive grants of about $40,000 each to accelerate technology development.
"We have lots of ideas but to convert them into products, there's some amount of capital needed. If there's access to funding, we can expedite the process," said Akash Agarwal, founder of New Leaf Dynamic Technologies.
Imperial College London is also working on an ice-maker powered by solar thermal collectors and developed by business partner Solar Polar. The final product will be a box with chambers and tubes but no mechanical or moving parts, said Christos Markides, who leads Imperial's Clean Energy Processes Laboratory.
"The technology behind our products could also be used to cool spaces, a pressing need in many developing countries," said Markides.
