The Global Cooling Prize — initiated by Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI); Mission Innovation; and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and supported by a broad-based coalition of partners — is an innovation competition aimed at identifying breakthrough, climate-friendly, and affordable residential cooling solutions that can provide cooling to all, without warming the planet. The Prize is part of Mission Innovation’s IC#7 on Affordable Heating and Cooling of Buildings and is catalyzing innovation by calling upon global innovators, entrepreneurs, start-ups, engineers, and Air Conditioning (AC) manufacturers to develop cooling solutions that have at least five times (5X) less climate impact and no more than two times (2X) the cost at assessed industrial scale than the most-commonly sold room air conditioner in the market today. When scaled, this winning cooling technology has the potential to mitigate up to 0.5°C of global warming by the end of the century.
Following the Prize launch in November 2018, over 2,000 participant registrations were received for the Prize from innovators, start-ups, research institutes, universities, and key AC industry manufacturers. Of these registered entities, 445 teams submitted their preliminary ideas through the intent to apply form and 139 teams from 31 countries around the globe followed through with their submission of the full Detailed Technical Application to the Prize. In the coming months, the Prize’s Technical Review Committee will be adjudicating the submitted applications and will elect up to 10 of the most promising cooling innovations that have the potential to meet all of the prize criteria. These finalists will be announced in New Delhi, India on November 15, 2019, at the Finalist Award Ceremony. Each finalist team will be awarded the first installment of the US$200,000 award for the development and delivery of two working prototypes of their cooling technology to Indian test locations by the 15th of April 2020. The winning cooling technology, or technologies, will be announced in November 2020 and awarded a total of US$1 million.
The Global Cooling Prize has gained global recognition and prominence with over 850 media publication mentions and top-tier media coverage in CNN, New York Times, Forbes, Guardian, among others. The Prize coalition has also co-hosted and presided at several high-profile industry events across five continents since the launch and gained over 52k website users from 185 countries. Overall, over 1.6 million unique user impressions have been received across the Prize’s social media channels, representative of the global interest in this cooling innovation competition.
To learn more about the Global Cooling Prize, please visit globalcoolingprize.org. To subscribe to the Prize newsletter, please click here.