Promoting Green Cooling in Africa

IKI supports four African partner countries to prepare for a transformational change towards sustainable cooling sector.

Within the framework of the Green Cooling Africa Initiative (GCAI), the Climate Technology Centre & Network (CTCN) and the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Environmental Ministry support Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius and Namibia to establish a prototype best practice approach for the cooling sector.

Refrigeration and air conditioning appliances are rapidly spreading across Africa. Because electricity in most African countries is still generated through burning of fossil fuels, a higher demand for energy results in increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GHG emissions and energy use can be substantially reduced with the use of highly energy efficient refrigeration and air conditioning devices and the substitution of high global warming potential refrigerants with low GWP refrigerants and foam blowing substances.

The GCAI will enable all four involved countries to develop a clear understanding on how the cooling sector contributes to their national energy consumption and total GHG emissions and where appropriate policy measures are required. 

The development of inventories for the refrigeration and air conditioning sector is also supported. These inventories will determine business as usual and mitigation emission pathways. Technology needs will be assessed through gap analysis between currently used technologies and internationally available best technology options. Both, inventories and gap analysis will then serve as basis for suitable policies recommendation in order to promote green cooling technologies. Together with country and regional specific technology roadmaps these are expected to form the basis for developing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) or similar bankable project proposals.

An in depth debate between delegates from those four countries, working in the ozone and climate departments of their home ministries, was made possible during the first Green Cooling Africa Week, organized in June 2016 by GIZ together with CTCN and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA). Participants engaged in a vivid exchange on how to promote the goal of transformational change in the cooling sector via speeding up technology transfer and implementation of sectoral refrigeration and air conditioning NAMAs.

The projects in Ghana and Kenya are financed by IKI and implemented under GIZ PROKLIMA Green Cooling Initiative. The CTCN, under the coordination of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), contracted GIZ International Services to implement the GCAI in Mauritius and Namibia.