Two winners of the $1 million Global Cooling Prize, launched by the government of India, Mission Innovation and the Rocky Mountain Institute in November 2018 to spur development of a radically more efficient, climate-friendly residential cooling solution, have been announced.

Gree Electric Appliances Inc. of Zhuhai with partner Tsinghua University in China, and Daikin with partner Nikken Sekkei Ltd. in Japan emerged as the two winners among eight finalists. These companies produced prototypes that have five times less climate impact than standard air conditioning units available in the market today. When scaled, such technologies can prevent 132 gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions cumulatively between now and 2050 and mitigate over 0.5° C of global warming by the end of the century.

The administrators of the competition concluded that while both teams’ technologies would likely have an initial up-front cost on introduction to the market at two to three times more than the baseline units, lifecycle cost of ownership would be around half that of the baseline unit. This means consumers would experience a simple payback on the higher first cost after just over three years of operation. The administrators also noted that the ability of the new systems to better control the indoor environment would provide increased comfort.

The other finalist teams include Barocal Ltd.; Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. with partners A.T.E; Kraton, Infosys, IIT Bombay and Porus Labs; M2 Thermal Solutions; S&S Design Startup Solutions Pvt. Ltd.; and Transaera with partner Haier.