Joint efforts of IFC, IIT Jammu, and Tabreed for Sustainable Cooling Innovation Lab and Startup Incubator

In a groundbreaking collaboration, IIT Jammu, IFC, and Tabreed India launched an innovation lab and startup incubator at IIT Jammu, advancing climate-smart cooling solutions and supporting sustainable development.

In a pioneering partnership in the subcontinent, the Indian Institute of Technology Jammu (IIT Jammu), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the global leader in cooling utilities, Tabreed India launched an innovation lab and start-up incubator to rapidly advance the development and deployment of cutting-edge, climate-smart cooling solutions. 

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. Through a unique and an independent approach, the lab will leverage IFC’s global reach and Tabreed’s unmatched 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, “Tabreed India is proud to partner with IIT Jammu and further advance the innovation ecosystem in sustainable cooling. 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. In this context,  the partnership between IIT Jammu, IFC and Tabreed aims to set up a Cooling Innovation lab (CIL). The CIL provides testbeds for the newly developed heat transfer fluids and control algorithms and focuses on future advanced cooling by harnessing the full potential of renewable energy and water conservation.”

The 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.