IFC, IIT Jammu, Tabreed inaugurate sustainable cooling innovation lab and startup Incubator in India

IIT Jammu, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Tabreed India have launched an innovation lab and start-up incubator to rapidly advance the development and deployment of cutting-edge, climate-smart cooling solutions. Tabreed India is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tabreed Asia Central Cooling Company and IFC. The firm claims to be a global leader among cooling utilities.

The official statement says that the inauguration of the lab, located at the IIT Jammu campus, comes on the heels of COP28, and is part of IFC’s TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling Innovation program, which is implemented in partnership with UK Aid and Tabreed India. The lab will leverage IFC’s global reach and Tabreed’s scale in deploying technology and OEM agnostic cooling solutions such as AI/IOT-solutions, nanotechnologies, and solar and renewable energy solutions for hotels, shopping malls, and other developments, data centres, cold chains, transport, and more.

The new lab will provide state-of-the-art reusable environments to pilot and verify new energy-efficient, cost-effective cooling technologies that lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Sudheer Perla, Managing Director, Tabreed Asia said, “This partnership will help meet the fast-growing commercial demand in India and shorten the adoption curve by demonstrating the commercial viability of new sustainable cooling technologies and business models. This will encompass Made-in-India innovations and new solutions from across the world.”

Dr Satya Sekhar Bhogilla, Assistant Professor, IIT Jammu said, “India’s Cooling Action Plan aims to provide sustainable cooling and thermal comfort while securing environmental and socio-economic benefits.”

Tabreed said that the new lab will act as a much-needed catalyst to bridge gaps in the cooling market. The solutions will be subject to rigorous testing and evaluation, and the conducive and controlled environment established -at IIT Jammu will ensure they are market-ready, deployable in a real-world context, and, most importantly, accessible and affordable for large scale adoption.

IFC’s TechEmerge program has already conducted more than 60 sustainable cooling pilots in India and across the world. The program does this by carefully matching promising innovators across the world with top local companies in emerging markets, and providing funding for field tests and support to bring climate-smart cooling solutions to scale in emerging markets, where they are needed most.

So far, TechEmerge innovators have raised more than $35 million in financing, while over $2 million in commercial contracts are currently under negotiation.