With the planet warming up, the demand for cooling is expected to grow exponentially and the need for sustainable cooling solutions becomes crucial across households, cities, businesses, and industries.

In Europe, the need to address cooling has been overlooked due to a milder summer climate and reliance on traditional building techniques. However, with the increasing frequency of heatwaves, the evolution of the 21^st Century’s economy in terms of productivity, and changing standards for buildings, the demand for cooling is projected to grow in the coming decades. One of the barriers to the development of a European cooling industry and the deployment of solutions aligned with climate and energy targets is the limited understanding of the sector at the policy-making level.

To tackle this challenge, the EU Project COOLING DOWN seeks to propose a vision for a renewable cooling sector in Europe in the coming decades, and issue policy recommendations and proposals to achieve it. Beyond the technological, economic, and social trends to be assessed through research, expert consultations, and modelling, the COOLING DOWN project is also aiming to address the contribution of renewable cooling technologies, such as solar thermal and geothermal, in climate change adaptation, with a specific focus on the mitigation of the urban heat island effect.

The consortium of the COOLING DOWN project comprises eleven partners from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Romania, and Belgium. Solar Heat Europe, as one of the project partners, looks forward to collaborating with the consortium members to highlight the importance of the cooling sector and unlock the potential of solar cooling technologies in contributing to a renewable and sustainable cooling supply for the future.

To stay up-to-date with the project’s developments, we invite you to visit the recently launched project website and subscribe to the newsletter. Additionally, we are pleased to announce that the first webinar of COOLING DOWN, “Towards a Net-Zero Future: the vital role of geothermal and solar thermal in providing sustainable cooling solutions“, took place on Monday, May 15th, from 14:00 to 15:30 CET. The event explored the potential of geothermal and solar thermal technologies to provide renewable cooling for a net-zero future. In case you missed the event, we invite you to access the recording.