Resilient Cooling Technology Profiles from the EBC Annex 80

The world is facing a rapid increase of air conditioning of buildings. This is driven by multiple factors, such as urbanisation and densification, climate change and elevated comfort expectations together with economic growth in hot and densely populated climate regions of the world. The trend towards cooling seems inexorable therefore it is mandatory to guide this development towards sustainable solutions.
Against this background, it is the motivation of Annex 80 to develop, assess and communicate solutions of resilient cooling and overheating protection. Resilient Cooling is used to denote low energy and low carbon cooling solutions that strengthen the ability of individuals and our community as a whole to withstand, and also prevent, thermal and other impacts of changes in global and local climates. It encompasses the assessment and Research & Development of both active and passive cooling technologies.
A wide range of cooling technologies and solutions is already available. Nevertheless, significant joint efforts are still needed to really guide the mainstream development of cooling into the direction of sustainability and resilience. The Resilient Cooling Technology Profiles systematically assess existing cooling technologies, their potentials, limitations, qualities of resilience and identify barriers as well as conductive conditions to implementation. The aim is to provide well-structured collection of technology descriptions. The Technology Profiles shall support decision makers within the process of urban planning, building investment and building design with well-structured information to draw their attention towards resilient cooling options.
The list of technologies assessed is based on the list of technologies that have already been subject of the EBC Annex 80 State of the Art Report. A total of 16 Technology Profiles have been developed, each one having a maximum of 2500 characters and/or 5 pages, excluding images and tables. The following table presents a summary of the technologies covered.