India has reaffirmed its standing role on climate change action and must adopt a sustained and long-term roadmap with periodic targets on domestic manufacturing and usage of HFC alternatives.
While fending for the rising cooling demand is vital for India’s economic development, curbing the collateral damages of climate change also holds equal importance. Juxtaposed between being among the fastest growing middleclass population and one of the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, India has to cautiously tread its trajectory of cooling demand. Nearly 55% of the Indian population is projected to join the ranks of the middle class and would account for the largest middle-class population in the world in terms of number of people by 2025. Private consumption in India that is fuelled by the middle class constitutes almost 60% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and has driven 70% of India’s growth since 2000. India has to ensure that rising energy aspirations of one section of population do not expose the susceptible, low-income populace to greater threats of global warming. Studies infer that India stands to lose ₹ 2600 lakh crore in economic potential, which could be 12.7% of its GDP, by 2070, if it doesn’t mitigate the effects of climate change.
On 18th August 2021, the Union Government of India approved the ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phase down Hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants. The Kigali Amendment is the eighth Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. It was signed in Kigali, Rwanda in the 28th meeting of parties to the Montreal Protocol by the negotiators from 197 countries to phase down production and consumption of Hydrofluorocarbons, commonly known as HFCs.
India is one of the very first countries in the world to launch a cooling action plan in 2019 to address the cooling requirement across sectors and provide sustainable cooling and thermal comfort for all through cooling demand reduction, refrigerant transition, enhanced energy efficiency and better technology options adoption with a 20-year time horizon. Ratification of the Kigali Amendment is a constructive step ahead to forge this vision towards sustainable and equitable cooling. Given the heat trapping potential of HFCs, potential, timely action on its phase out is critical to offset climate change in the timescale of a few decades to centuries.
HFCs and Global Warming
HFCs are man-made industrial chemicals used in cooling, refrigeration, air-conditioning, insulating foams, aerosols and fire extinguishing systems. HFCs were developed to replace the stratospheric ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were ratified for phase out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
Since HFCs do not have chlorine, they do not deplete the ozone layer. However, they are very powerful greenhouse gases with global warming potential hundred to thousand times more than that of carbon dioxide per unit of mass. This property of HFCs is projected to offset the beneficial impact of zero ozone layer depletion in the long run. HFCs remain in the atmosphere for a period of 15-29 years and currently constitute 1% of greenhouse gases. However, with increasing cooling demand, HFC emission is increasing at an annual rate of 10-15%, doubling every five to seven years and the most abundant HFC is estimated to be 3,790 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
Kigali Amendment aims to reduce the usage of HFCs by 80-85% by 2045 that will avert up to 0.5° C rise in global temperature by 2100. Unlike the Paris Agreement, where climate change pledges of the countries are voluntary in nature, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol is legally binding with mandatory targets for countries. The baselines of various countries are different with different timelines to replace HFCs with climate friendly alternatives. India has to reduce its HFCs usage by atleast 80% by 2047.
India’s Rising Cooling Demand
Rapid urbanisation, rising temperature and increasing income is unfolding an unprecedented increase in India’s cooling demand. Growing at an annual rate of 15-20%, it is expected to rise to around 2.2 times in 2027 over the 2017 baseline under business-as-usual scenario. Refrigeration alone will contribute to one fourth of this demand in 2027. Room air conditioner (AC) sales are estimated to grow by six to eight folds in less than twenty years, although currently only 8% of Indian households own an AC. According to the India Cooling Action Plan, cooling requirements in transportation AC and cold chain will rise by five and four times respectively in 2037.
India plans to develop a national strategy for phase down of HFCs as per the applicable phase down schedule after required consultation with all the industry stakeholders by 2023. It will complete the phasedown in four steps with a cumulative reduction of 10% in 2032, 20% in 2037 and 30% in 2042 and 89% in 2047.
This initiative has unlocked a window of opportunities for domestic manufacturers to transition the refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC) and related industries to low or zero global warming potential (GWP) alternatives. HFC phasedown will catalyse innovative, low carbon technologies to realise energy efficiency gains in refrigerators, ACs, and other products and processes and there may not be ‘one size fits all’ alternative solution to HFCs. Some of the likely alternatives are R290, R600A, R717 and R744. These are natural refrigerants available at lower cost, have low GWP and high energy efficiency compared to HFCs. A comparison of some of their characteristics is provided below:
|
Refrigerant |
Common Name |
Properties |
Ozone depletion potential (ODP) |
Global warming potential (GWP) |
|
R290 |
Propane |
Flammable, low toxic, high solubility, excellent thermodynamic properties, higher energy efficiency. |
0 |
3 |
|
R600A |
Isobuatane |
Flammable, non-toxic, excellent thermodynamic properties, higher energy efficiency. |
0 |
~3 |
|
R717 |
Ammonia |
Toxic, mildly flammable, corrosive, excellent thermodynamic properties, higher energy efficiency. |
0 |
0 |
|
R744 |
Carbondioxide |
Non-flammable, high operating pressures, non-toxic, low critical point. |
0 |
1 |
The alternatives to fluorinated refrigerants have various challenges in applications, arising out of their chemical and thermophysical properties. However, technology innovation and design strategies have demonstrated high efficiency RACs with these low GWP natural refrigerants. The Global Cooling Prize 2021, an international innovation competition was launched by a global collaboration between Government of India and Rocky Mountain Institute to develop super-efficient and climate-friendly residential cooling solutions with at least five times less climate impact than standard room air conditioning units available in the market today. The joint winners of the competition, Daikin with partner Nikken Sekkei and Gree Electric Appliances with partner Tsinghua University developed high efficiency prototypes based on vapour compression systems and low GWP refrigerants, which when scaled, have the potential to prevent 132 GT of CO2 -equivalent emissions cumulatively between now and 2050.
Cooling efficiency in built environment is deemed as one of six high impact opportunities for job creation and economic growth via appropriate policies, post COVID 19 pandemic by the global climate-friendly cooling initiative, Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program, 2017, (K-CEP renamed as Clean Cooling Collaborative on 24th August 2021). Earnest collaboration between the R&D fraternity and industry players is the need of the hour to identify wider variety of HFC alternative solutions for different sectors and applications. The policy makers must stir the market transformation with conducive and complimentary policies for domestic manufacturers to commercialise these alternatives into scalable options. Financial support to the investors to attract investments and low interest loans for manufacturing investment will also help expand the market.
In the backdrop of the “code red for humanity” on global warming in the recently published IPCC report, India has reaffirmed its standing role on climate change action with the Kigali ratification. To emerge as global leaders in this cooling transition, India must now adopt a sustained and long-term roadmap with smaller, periodic targets on domestic manufacturing and usage of HFC alternatives, just like the HFC phase down targets.
Priyami Dutta is a Senior Research Associate at the Alliance for and Energy Efficient Economy. She is currently executing the State Energy Efficiency index, 2020 for energy efficiency assessment of the Indian States & Union Territories.