Implementing ICAP: Developing Optimal Cooling Pathways for India

Undertaken By: The Celestial Earth ,    Recent Publication: 2020

The India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), launched by the Ozone Cell of the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC) in order to address the status and future scope of cooling and refrigeration demand, provides a long-term policy road-map for addressing India’s vast and unmet cooling demand in a sustainable manner with minimal environmental and socio-economic impact. However, with increasing cooling demand, energy demand is also going to increase leading to a potential increase in HFC requirement which needs to be addressed sustainably.

Determining the best sustainable and low carbon pathway with optimal mix of efficient technologies and best approaches is going to be a key to achieving the ICAP targets, i.e., reducing cooling demand with most optimal emission reductions. Hence, it is imperative that the assessment of optimal cooling demand and technology mix takes into account both enablers and constraints within the energy system to ensure that ICAP achieves its proposed targets in India without compromising on our Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).