The new project CoolST aims to analyse the cooling market in South Tyrol (Italy) and develop tailored cooling strategies for different sectors of the economy.
Heating and cooling (H&C) in buildings and industry make up about 50% of the energy consumption of the EU, making it the main source of environmental emissions. The H&C sector comprises space heating (SH), domestic hot water (DHW), space cooling (SC) for comfort in buildings, and process heat (PH) and cooling (PC) for industries. Hence, upgrading H&C systems is crucial for decarbonising, decreasing energy demand, implementing renewable energy supply, and reducing the reliance on imported fossil fuels.
Buildings account for the largest portion of Europe’s H&C consumption, which is around 80%. As cities increasingly experience the adverse effects of climate, energy demand for space cooling continues to rise as a result of increasing temperatures. In the residential sector, climate change is expected to have a meaningful impact on space cooling demand, marked by an estimated 44% increase in air conditioning demand by 2050. Given this projected impact on residential buildings and the role of households in influencing building energy use, the project CoolST will particularly focus on residential buildings to provide integrated solutions to reduce energy use.
CoolST project coordinator Simon Pezzutto (Team Leader at Eurac Research - Institute for Renewable Energy): 'According to the project’s first results, the majority of cooling consumption in South Tyrol is given in the transportation sector, followed by industry, tertiary, and households. However, the households (residential sector) display a significant growth in recent years.'
The project CoolST (Adapting to Climate Change Impact: Crafting South Tyrol's Cooling Future for Energy Resilience) kicked off in spring of 2025 intending to provide an in-depth analysis and assessment of the cooling market in South Tyrol (Province of Bolzano, Italy), offering insights into the number of installed cooling units, categorised by type and sector (residential, tertiary, industry, and transportation). The project aims to quantify the current energy consumption and to project it to 2040, developing tailored cooling strategies for the region.
One of the key deliverables of CoolST is the creation of a Knowledge Hub, an online open-source repository containing meticulously assembled and quality-controlled data and information about South Tyrol’s cooling market. Additionally, a user-friendly Tool will be developed to transform this data into easily comprehensible knowledge.
The CoolST consortium is composed of four partners: Eurac Research as the lead partner, University of Bolzano, Fraunhofer Italia and Laimburg Research Centre. It is funded by the South Tyrol Climate Plan 2040, by resolution of the Provincial Government on July 18, 2023, no. 595.
