The Excel based tool helps to evaluate the cost of a walk-in cold room by considering:
🌤 Weather conditions (average ambient temperature and solar irradiance)
🌡 Target cold room temperature
🥕 Daily input of agricultural products
💰 Specific cost of main components

The design of solar cooling system highly depends on the ambient temperature and user case rather than solar radiation. A better insulation, reduces considerably the energy consumption and therefore the solar components needed. With the tool, you can find a tradeof and evaluate the cost sensitivity of a cold room operating under different escenarios. For the final design, we use hourly simulations of typical weather years to optimize the entire system according to the current specific cost and carbon foot print of every main component.

This tool was developed and made available to the public with the kind This work was supported by the Efficiency for Access Research and Development Fund, managed by Energy Saving Trust and supported by UK aid from the UK government via the Transforming Energy Access platform, and the IKEA Foundation.