Latin America. TechEmerge , the program of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), connects international innovators with local companies to, through its pilot program, respond to the needs of sustainable cooling in the region.
As IFC's website states, "TechEmerge has brought together some of the world's most promising innovators with leading companies in Mexico and Colombia to pilot sustainable refrigeration solutions, build business relationships, reduce investment risk, and accelerate the adoption of innovation in this fast-growing region."
The focus is then, after East Asia and the Pacific, "Latin America offers the second largest climate-smart investment potential in the world of up to USD 5.7 trillion by 2030".
These data would be a consequence of its urbanization rate, the highest in the world, coupled with its warm climate, factors that set the stage for an increase in the demand for refrigeration, where the IFC projects that in the large cities of LATAM the demand for these air conditioning solutions will increase by 5 to 6 times in the next 30 years.
The TechEmerge program, in the words of Gabriel Jimenez, the consultant and HVAC expert, seeks to unite two groups. On the one hand, innovators or entrepreneurs, on the other large companies, to create synergy between both and provide advice.
"On the side of adopters or companies, they want them to know that there are cutting-edge technologies they can use. For innovators (that is, companies with a level of technological maturity of a TRL level 7 upwards) to contemplate the possibility of coming to Latin America. That is, it provides advice from side to side to generate the possibility of new technologies from the hand of innovators that reach the region. "
Gabriel was insistent in pointing out that the current model will not be sustainable because by 2050 the installed capacity in refrigeration and air systems will triple, so "we need to accelerate the adoption and development of new technologies."
Pilot test
A total of 20 pilots, which were announced since May 2021, are underway. Each aims to test and validate cost-effective, energy-efficient and climate-smart solutions that also have a wide range of applications for various industries.
These pilots are composed of two actors. The first is a group of 13 cutting-edge innovators from around the world competitively selected by TechEmerge and its expert panel of independent advisors. The second is 18 companies from Mexico and Colombia.
The dynamic is to generate a pairing between both groups to test and validate innovations in industrial and commercial refrigeration, temperature-controlled logistics, space refrigeration and others.
In the case of Mexico, the high-potential sectors that were identified are retail, pharmaceutical, construction, real estate and transportation. There, space cooling accounts for 50 to 70 percent of electricity costs.
Finally, in Colombia, since 75 percent of its population lives in cities, the demand for sustainable cooling is higher. In this country, the sectors with the greatest potential for innovation in refrigeration are property development and management, retail, temperature-controlled logistics and cold chains.
