The project has been awarded €639,000 EU funding and draws together 12 research institutions and 5 industrial companies to accelerate new technologies into the marketplace.
The consortium - called CO-COOL - will bring together complementary expertise in chemical engineering, materials, cold thermal storage and refrigeration systems as well as skills in business development and entrepreneurship.
One of the key challenges to overcome is the intermittent way in which renewable energy is generated, as well as the fluctuations in end-user demand. To address this, the consortium will be developing cold thermal energy storage technologies that can maximise the use of renewable energy and also cheap off-peak electricity.
Other areas the consortium will focus on include the development of thermally-driven technologies that will maximise the use of waste heat, and flexible refrigeration technologies that can absorb efficiently electricity from intermittent renewable sources.
"We recognise that we need interdisciplinary approaches to create this revolution in cooling technologies," says Dr Li "Crucially, that means not only bringing together the research expertise to drive the underpinning innovations, but also working with SMEs and other organisations to accelerate the adoption of these innovations by industry."
CO-COOL RISE is a four-year project, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 under its Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange programme.