Sofitel Hotel Cuts Cooling Costs via IFC’s TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling Innovation Pilot Program

British innovation meets Mumbai luxury: Endo Enterprises’ EndoCool technology has slashed chiller consumption energy by 15.8% at a premier Sofitel hotel, marking a milestone success for the IFC/Tabreed: TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling Program.

India is one of the fastest-growing markets for cooling with the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change forecasting the demand for cooling to increase eightfold by 2037-38.

Cooling is expected to account for almost 45% of India’s peak energy demand by 2050, driven by factors like climate change, rapid urbanisation, and increasing income levels.

Access to cooling is essential, yet traditional systems consume vast amounts of energy and emit greenhouse gases, which further accelerate global warming.  

What is TechEmerge?

IFC’s award-winning TechEmerge program matches innovators worldwide with leading companies in emerging markets. Through carefully curated pilot projects, the program de-risks investment, builds lasting commercial partnerships, and scales breakthrough solutions to urgent global challenges.

In 2022, IFC’s TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling Innovation program (in its third phase) partnered with Tabreed India to match promising innovators across the world with top local companies in emerging markets, and to provide funding for field tests and support to bring climate-smart cooling solutions to scale in emerging markets, where they are needed most. The program leverages IFC’s global reach and Tabreed’s unmatched scale in deploying technology and OEM agnostic cooling solutions such as AI/IOT-solutions, nanotechnologies, solar and renewable energy solutions for hotels, shopping malls, other developments, data centres, cold chains, transport, and more.

India has emerged as a global leader in sustainable cooling, implementing one of the world’s first comprehensive national cooling strategies. Indian companies and consumers are keen to adopt clean cooling technologies and the IFC TechEmerge program helps meet the fast-growing commercial demand in India and shorten the adoption curve by demonstrating the commercial viability of new sustainable cooling technologies and business models.

After a series of applications and Innovation pitches to the adopter, Endo Enterprises with its EndoCool technology was paired with the Sofitel Hotel in Mumbai, part of the Accor Group.

More information on the pilot project is available on the TechEmerge website.

The Site

Located in Mumbai’s central business district, Sofitel Mumbai BKC has 302 suites spanning 14 floors and basements with a combined area of 470,000 sq.ft (43,600 sqm).

 
At the heart of the hotels HVAC cooling infrastructure lies a powerful trio of chillers – two 370-ton and one 350-ton units – complemented by three cooling towers. The system’s newest and most efficient Trane chiller (chiller 2), handles primary cooling duties while its companions (chiller 1 and chiller 3) engage during peak demands.

This CHW system circulates through an impressive 39-cubic-meter chilled water network.
 

Measurement & Verification (M&V)

Lead by EDS, the M&V study of the pilot used IPMVP ‘Option A’ (Retrofit Isolation – Key Parameter Measurement). This approach involved isolating the impact of the EndoCool retrofit by measuring the key performance parameters the additive was designed to enhance. This included evaporator approach, chiller efficiency and chiller consumption. Other measurements, including temperature (wet bulb and dry bulb) and cooling loads, were considered to ensure the baseline and post-install period were similar.

Whilst specific occupancy data was not available from the hotel; feedback conveyed by Sofitel team suggested that the building’s occupancy had slightly increased in the post-install reporting period.
 

The Results

The analysis outcomes reached by EDS from the M&V study of EndoCool piloted at Sofitel Mumbai are as follows:
 

• The data for Chiller 2 showed a 6.7% improvement in efficiency and a reduction in the evaporator approach by 0.41°C.
  This improvement is likely due to an increase in the saturated evaporator temperature of 0.54°C during the reporting period. These changes suggest better heat exchange performance and optimized chiller operation.
• The electrical consumption of Chiller 2 shows a 6.75% savings when normalized to the baseline running hours.
  These savings further emphasize the improvement in chiller efficiency following the pilot implementation.
• The efficiency improvements observed in Chiller 2 suggest similar improvements in the other chillers.
• The total running hours of the chillers decreased by 173 hours during the reporting period, indicating improved and more efficient heat exchange within the system.
  With increased performance from the primary chiller (Chiller 2) the reliance on the support chillers (1 & 3) is reduced.
• The system-wide improvement has led to a total consumption reduction of 15.8% across all three chillers due to improved chiller efficiency and reduced running hours.
• Over the pilot period, the pilot saved 24,475kWh. This is a financial saving of ₹232,510 Indian Rupee ($2,755 USD) based on ₹9.5 per kWh ($0.112 USD) unit price. The expected ROI is within 18 months.
• The pilot saved a combined 20,069kg of CO2e.