SolarChill is a new ozone friendly refrigeration technology using solar power, enabling delivery of vaccines and food to regions of the world without electricity. Developed by us along with six other organisations it has won the Environmental Pioneer in Refrigeration award in the 2006 Cooling Industry Awards.
The SolarChill project developed a versatile refrigeration technology that operates on solar energy; uses environmentally safe refrigerants; bypasses the use of lead batteries; and can also be plugged into the electricity grid. Developed over the last six years, SolarChill has been field tested in Senegal, Indonesia, and Cuba and once it receives World Health Organisation (WHO) approval will be deployed across the world.
"The Solar Chill technology clearly demonstrates the huge, largely untapped resource of clean, renewable solar power that's out there. This innovation will improve the delivery of vaccine programmes in many regions of the world and save countless lives," said Wolfgang Lohbeck of Greenpeace Germany.
Hopefully SolarChill will eventually replace the 100,000 kerosene refrigerators in use today around the world for cooling vaccines. Kerosene refrigerators are often unreliable and produce approximately between 73 and 91 million kilograms of CO2 each year.
Developed along with UNICEF, UNEP, World Health Organisation (WHO), GTZ Proklima, Programmes for Appropriate Technologies in Health (PATH) and the Danish Technological Institute, SolarChill will improve both human health care and help fight global warming.
More about SolarChill
At the same awards ceremony Coca-Cola also received an award for equipping all World Cup stadiums in Germany with refrigeration technology that doesn't use powerful global warming gases and it more energy efficient. This is another positive result of our successful campaign to make Coke switch to more environmentally friendly refrigeration technology.
More about Coke's switch to climate friendly refrigeration.
All in all a nice night for us, but a even better night for recognising technology that is good for the planet.
