In November 2023, a training of trainers was organised jointly by C4II (Cool Contributions Fighting Climate Change) and the Food Cold Chain (FCC) project implemented by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The trainers were trained on the Operation, Servicing and Maintenance of R744 Carbon Dioxide as low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant for Industrial Refrigeration from 20-24 November 2024 at Cold Chain Innovation Hub or CCI-Hub at the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in Taguig City, Philippines.
With hydrocarbons (R290 and R600a) and ammonia (R717) refrigerants integrated in the Philippine Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (RAC) Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Curriculum for service technicians, the next step is to introduce carbon dioxide or R744 to TESDA.
From its experience in conducting natural refrigerant training of trainers globally, the GIZ global cooling program Proklima developed the “Fit-for-Green Cooling” approach for integrating natural refrigerants with low to zero global warming potential in the TVET systems of partner countries.
The FCC project referred to the “Fit-for-Green Cooling” curriculum in their demonstration trainings at the CCI-Hub on R717 and R290 for commercial applications. With R744 a totally new technology to the Philippines, a trainer from Germany came to the Philippines and provided the basics of operation and servicing while highlighting the safety requirements in handling equipment with unusually high pressure referred to as transcritical refrigeration technology.