What is Climate Technologies?
As per United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Climate Technologies are any technologies that we use to address climate change which is explicitly focussed on reducing GHG emissions.
Recognition and understanding are growing of government, business and public responsibilities for responding to climate change. There is also a growing awareness of the need to have clear guidance across the value chain in both adapting to and mitigating climate change and creating science-based and transparent frameworks to accelerate the transition to sustainable logistics services.
There is a constant pursuit for the appropriate “Climate Technologies” tailored to the Business
Broadly climate technologies can be classified into 10 families critical to meeting the net-zero challenge.
Image reference: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/making-supply-chain-decarbonization-happen
Climate Technologies for Cold-chain Logistics
Out of the above 10 families of climate technologies we have narrowed down on 2 families with case in example of technologies or products relevant to the cold-chain sector.
This list would provide as a quick guide on the opportunities of interventions for stakeholders in the cold-chain industry such as manufacturers of chilled and frozen food products, e-retailers, HoReCa and logistics provider helping them reduce carbon footprint in their value chain.
1.Batteries and energy storage
Renewable energy for cooling application:
We have known solar as the most commonly and largely adopted renewable source of energy. The challenge of using renewables to its full potential is its intermittent nature of availability. Incase of value chain at the first mile where the challenge is accessibility to constant supply of power; solar or wind power can be harnessed to provide energy. Since the final energy requirement in this case is in the form of cooling, thermal energy storage strategy should be applied to integrate with renewable power instead of electric batteries. For instance, a solar based coldroom of size 10ft x 10ft would require a lead acid battery which has a service life of 3 years. In addition, there is a substantial loss in multiple conversions of the energy. There are atleast three conversions – electrical energy to chemical energy, chemical energy to electrical energy and electrical energy to cooling energy.
To enable a 100% off-grid solar micro-coldroom, a 4kwP solar PV panel coupled with refrigeration unit which provides energy for the day time cooling as well as thermal energy storage for night time which totals upto 14kWh(*Thermal units). Now if this unit was to draw power from electrical battery storage the required installed capacity would be 17 kwh(Electrical units).
| Thermal Energy Storage | Battery storage | |
| Cost of storage, per kwh | INR 8,000 | INR 5,000 |
| End of Life, yrs | 15 years | 3 years |
| Conversion efficiency | 95% | 80% |
*1.2kwh of electrical energy is needed to produce 1kwh of thermal energy
The above table offers key parameter comparison that points towards a high carbon footprint for an electrical battery(lead acid type) considering the replacement every 3 years and conversion efficiency alone. The end of life disposal and its environment hazard is even great for electric batteries while in case of thermal energy storage for cold applications , the core materials used are non-toxic/ environmentally safe salt hydrates with water as a major constituent.
Image reference: Pluss Advanced Technologies: Off-grid Micro-Coldroom using thermal energy storage.
Back-up and thermal efficiency for cooling application
The most common backup system used to tackle power outages is diesel generators which at the current rate costs Rs. 38 per unit of electricity. In terms of the carbon emissions, a litre of diesel contributes to 2.62 Kgs of carbon emissions. Cleaner and more efficient storage technologies such as Li-ion batteries and thermal energy storage strategies could be applied to operate large coldwarehouses. Li-ion batteries have a very high electrical energy density, however the high capital costs could prove to be a limitation for these to be implemented for applications where energy in the final consumption stage is in the form of electricity.
Again for refrigeration/HVAC systems, thermal energy storage systems as a medium to store and enable demand flexibility proves to be a cleaner and carbon-neutral solution with a decent pay back of less than 2 years on CAPEX.
The incorporation of Phase Change Materials(PCM) as a thermal energy storage strategy improves the thermal performance of the refrigeration unit as well enabling reduction in the run time of the compressor
Image reference: Pluss Advanced Technologies – Commercial chest freezers with thermal Energy Storage(TES)
Electrification of reefer trucks
The cost of a reefer truck is on an average about 60% higher than a normal truck varying slightly depending on different capacities. Reefer trucks form a crucial part of cold chain for both short and long duration transport.
Hybrid Reefer trucks enable a way to eliminate the use of diesel to run the cooling unit. For first mile intra-city distribution, these trucks provide upto 16 hours of temperature-controlled delivery with only 8 hours of electric charging which would offset about 30-35 Litrs of diesel.* It is important to underline that the refrigeration unit is used to maintain the temperature range of product load and not cool it down.
This is a case in example of using a combination of electrical battery storage and thermal energy storage. 50% of the fuel used in reefer vehicle is consumed towards operating the cooling unit, therefore thermal energy storage makes more sense than deploying electric batteries.
Image reference: Pluss Advanced Technologies – Partially electric Refrigerated truck with thermal Energy Storage(TES)
2.Circular economy
A circular economy is an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. Circular systems enable re-use, sharing, repair, refurbishment, re-manufacturing, and recycling. This closed-loop systems minimizes resource inputs and reduce waste, pollution, and carbon emissions. In cold-chain logistics, for small volume distribution and for long distances small capacity shipper boxes are used which are often heavily packaged with thermal insulation packaging, Phase Change Materials(PCMs) or ice packs constitute to 50% of the weight and volume than the product itself. In most cases the common reason for resistance towards designing one’s business around circular economy is the cost of reverse logistics not being viable. However, strategically we are bound to lose in the long term as the cost of these single use systems are bound to inflate due to indirect costs such as waste generation, emissions, depleting resources and rising energy costs are indirect effect of single use economy.
Image source: https://www.triumvirate.com/blog/do-you-know-about-the-circular-economy
Digital transformation integrated with resilient and reusable materials
Use of more durable materials and reusable materials, IOT integration to track and monitor and business model innovations such as “pay per use” could be a win-win situation for both producers and customers to make this mechanism work.
Technologies such as Phase Change Materials(PCMs) in cold-chain logistics are designed for a life of over 3,000 cycles.
It is an abundant stress on landfill and reproduction of such components even if the capital cost of the product is inexpensive for customers.
A case in example of the economic and environmental benefit is for long duration logistics for pharmaceuticals. Typically a shipper box carrying pharmaceuticals uses EPS(Expanded polystyrene) commonly known as thermocol is slow to degrade and if proper considerations towards disposal is not given, it can leach chemicals that contaminate water sources.
Further the manufacturing of EPS releases significant amount of HFC(HydroFluorocarbons) which are also know as “Super greenhouse gases”. HFC’s has far greater impact towards global warming than CO2, as illustrated in the image below.
Using reusable alternatives can enable one to do more with less. Essentially by reusing a company can typically use 50% of the packaging material to ship the same amount of products. The capital cost of such reusable shippers would be 5X and yet the total cost reduction impacted by lower freight cost, better payload to total volume ratio would 25%. This reduction in cost is taking into consideration the added cost of reverse logistics to get the empty shipper box back. The below table offers a glimpse of the comparative anlaysis between “one time use” shipper vs “multiple” use shipper strategy.
| Total Number of vaccines moved (units per month) | 75,000 | |
| Current Situation With EPS Box | Proposed Rental Program (with sustainable packaging materials) Solution | |
| Vaccines per box, units | 50 | 100 |
| Times the box can be reused in a month, no. | 0 | 4 |
| Boxes required per month, nos. | 1,500 | 187.5 |
| Cost per box | 860 | |
| Rental per month per box | 6000 | |
| Total Box Cost | 12,90,000 | 11,25,000 |
| Weight per box (kg) | 30 | 13 |
| Forward freight (@ Rs. 15 per kg) | 6,75,000 | 1,46,250 |
| Reverse Freight | 1,46,250 | |
| Total Freight | 6,75,000 | 2,92,500 |
| Total Cost | 19,65,000 | 14,17,500 |
Cost benefit template: Domestic inter-city shipment spanning from 48 to 72 hours
Moving away from Analysis Paralysis and Cost-Centricity approach
Companies in Cold-chain logistic services or ones in the business of temperature sensitive products have a very huge opportunity to make a difference to fight against climate change. In comparison to rest of the world, the Indian cold-chain industry is still in its growing phase which in itself offers India an opportunity to setup the infrastructure with newer, efficient and far more environmental resilient systems. Therefore, there is a need to implement climate technologies in small scale pilots with careful baseline data preparation to measure and evaluate the benefits. At the rate of acceleration in the global climate change, we do not have the luxury to analyse on theory or wait to follow the western world. On the ground deployment of innovations must be a priority with the intention to fail fast and move on to different solutions and iterate.
Sustainability and decarbonisation have to become everybody’s business and entrenched in the organizations culture. Strategic plan with the goals towards operating cost reduction, fossil fuel elimination and elimination of GHG emission to be set for the organisation by a dedicated internal team responsible for sustainable initiatives. It is imperative to give ourselves a wake-up call that being sustainable is not a cost centre but a non-negotiable element of the growth strategy for the organization.
Author: Vishnu Sasidharan, VP Climate Technologies
References:
- https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement
- https://ir.kraftheinzcompany.com/news-releases/news-release-details/kraft-heinz-cements-climate-ambition-commits-carbon-neutrality
- https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/making-supply-chain-decarbonization-happen
- https://unfccc.int/topics/climate-technology/the-big-picture/what-is-technology-development-and-transfer
- https://epe.global/2019/10/18/measuring-pollution-from-the-eps-manufacturing-process/
