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Cli­ma­te and Ozone Pro­tec­tion Al­li­an­ce (CO­PA)

Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK)
Partner countries: Global, China, Ghana
Implementing partners: United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Demand for cooling and air conditioning units is rising sharply in the Global South. As a result, there is an ever-growing number of appliances and foams containing halogenated hydrocarbons. These are either ozone-depleting substances (ODS) or have a high global-warming potential (hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs). When old cooling devices are not disposed of in an environmentally friendly way, the legacy ‘ODS and HFC banks’ release emissions freely into the atmosphere.

The disposal of ODS and HFC banks is not currently a priority in the international climate debate. To date, the international community has only agreed to regulate the production and consumption of ODS in the Montreal Protocol and to phase-down climate-warming HFCs in the Kigali Amendment. An agreement on how to dispose of existing ODS and HFCs is still needed.

Objective

Policy-makers are taking measures to get rid of ODS and HFC banks and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are also incorporating this issue into their national climate strategies.

Approach

The Climate and Ozone Protection Alliance (COPA) is combating emissions from old cooling devices in China and Ghana. As the project progresses, more countries demonstrating considerable potential for reducing ODS and HFCs will be identified and supported. As part of this, the plan is to expand networks and to establish the Alliance in the countries concerned at political level. COPA is focusing above all on working with metropolitan regions, as this is where large quantities of legacy ODS and HFCs build up. In terms of putting reduction measures into practice, COPA carries out status quo analyses and implements practical models in selected metropolitan regions.

Last update: November 2022

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Image: Shutterstock / Mikhail P.

For further information on COPA please also visit www.copalliance.org (opens in a new window).

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Pho­to­vol­taic-power­ed Air Con­di­tio­n­ing in Buil­dings: Tech­ni­cal eco­no­mic ana­ly­sis

06/2022 , Publication - Technical Publication :

This study explores the economic and technical potential of the use of solar PV-powered green air conditioners in 13 countries.

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Space cooling in buildings is characterized by enormous growth rates, due to increasing ambient temperatures, growing population and urbanisation. Air-conditioned buildings in many countries are largely dominated by mid to low appliance energy efficiency levels, highly climate-damaging refrigerants as well as fossil-fuel based electricity supply. This in sum generates a huge amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, furthering climate change.

The objective of this paper is to further unfold the technical and economic potential of solar PV-powered green air conditioners. Therefore it focuses on the most widely applied type of active cooling appliance: single split-type air conditioning systems with a cooling capacity up to 5 kW. It looks at the current development of technical main components (AC, PV system, battery storage) and based on that defines model cases for hybrid and off-grid solutions for private and small commercial application. The technical and economic potential for these cases is then analysed for 13 countries by calculating the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) and the Net Present Value (NPV). Subsequently, a case study on Médecins Sans Frontières’s (MSF) solar AC project in Haiti provides practical insights on the use of PV-powered AC systems in the context of off-grid social infrastructure.

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