Green Cooling Council: Future-proof cooling for Australia

Australia’s leading non-profit organisation to speed up the transition to natural refrigerants in the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, has joined R744.com to present its services and up to date information on latest projects and future challenges.

Since 2003, when the Green Cooling Council (GCC) was founded as a membership-based industry association to reduce the environmental footprint of the refrigeration and air conditioning industries, the organisation has put Australia on a successful track towards natural refrigerants. Today, the GCC is a widely recognized body to advise the Australian government and industry on the implementation of CO₂ projects across the nation, as well as the use of other natural refrigerants. For its work done so far, the GCC was awarded a “CoolWorld Industry Award” last April which recognized the company’s effort in Australia’s first CO₂-only transcritical supermarket installation.

In a bid to further reduce the use of ozone-depleting and high global warming refrigerants in and around Australia, the Green Cooling Council advocates the wider acceptance of low GWP natural refrigerants in the community by spreading information material, assisting in new installations, and fostering training and education. Equipped with grants of up to AU$2 million over four years provided by the Australian government in 2006, it has been involved in several CO₂ sub- and transcritical projects recognized beyond national borders. As a consequence, leading retailers, including Coles and Woolworths, have now made their intention clear to build CO₂ supermarkets, showing great interest in the environmental benefits and superior performance of transcritical installations.

“By shifting from HFC refrigeration supermarkets are cutting, by one-quarter, the carbon footprint of their stores. This is a new course for the industry,” Brent Hoare, Government and Industry Relations Manager at the Green Cooling Council, welcomes the trend towards natural refrigerants.

Latest GCC projects & Next steps

A particular focus of GCC’s actitivies is to ensure that the transition to benign alternatives is done in a safe manner through better training courses, materials and facilities for technicians and design engineers. For this purpose, the GCC works closely with technical colleges to provide knowledge about future-proof cooling solutions urgently needed by forthcoming generations of industry professionals. As a recent success, GCC’s grant application for regional training was approved by the government. This will help overcome the acute skills shortages existing in the industry.

Another key concern of the GCC is to include high global warming HFCs in Australia’s emissions trading scheme to further accelerate their phase-out. As from July, large companies using commercial refrigeration and air conditioning, or industrial food processing, are now required to report on refrigerant emissions. Another proposal currently being developed under the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is to include refrigerants at the “upstream” level, requiring the purchase of emissions permits at import. In spite of objections from the fluorocarbon industry, this will raise the cost of HFCs substantially, making alternatives like CO₂ more cost efficient by the day. Building on the experience of Norway, the Australian government is favouring refrigerant price increases as the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Montreal Protocol industries.

The Green Cooling Council is also looking into other technologies, such as to broaden its portfolio to integrate geothermal heat pump technology as a proven, reliable and cost-effective choice for space heating, cooling, and water heating in many building types. Using CO₂ in deep well direct exchange heat pumps will enable natural refrigerants to harness renewable energy. This has massive potential to reduce both direct and indirect emissions and energy costs in domestic and commercial buildings, the GCC is sure.

Contact Information

If you would like to contact Green Cooling Council for any enquiries, you may send a request to Brent Hoare directly.