Barocal claims its technology can ‘deliver up to three times the energy efficiency of traditional systems’ and also that it ‘eliminates harmful refrigerants and boosts energy efficiency, offering a sustainable alternative for air conditioning and refrigeration’, according to the TERA-Award team.

At the heart of the company’s cooling system is a solid powder that creates heat when pressure is applied and cools its surroundings when the pressure is removed. This ‘barocaloric effect’ can change temperatures by more than 50°C. Unlike current refrigerant gases in use, the solid material does not leak or contribute to greenhouse gases, explains Barocal.

Although yet to be commercialised, the technology, which is based on over a decade of research at the University of Cambridge, has a wide range of applications, including refrigeration, comfort cooling and heating in homes and businesses, industrial process cooling and data centre cooling, says the company.

‘The cooling industry is under pressure from all directions: emissions regulations, soaring demand and the volatile cost of energy. Central to this puzzle is [natural] gas – whose inherent inefficiency turns these challenges into a vicious spiral: the warming world needs more cooling, but that cooling itself warms the world,’ says Barocal. ‘Crucially – unlike other technologies that have tried to replace refrigerant gases – our breakthrough solid is inexpensive, plentiful and safe. This has allowed us to build a modular, simple and scalable cooling system around it that is reliable and can run for millions of cycles. All of which helps solve the critical pressures that the industry, the world’s energy and the planet’s climate is under.’

Winner of the Silver TERA-Award, and $100,000, was Massachusetts-based Feon Energy for its molecular approach to battery design. Using its pharmaceutical-inspired EDGE platform the company has created entirely new electrolyte molecules that it says will enable safer, higher-performance batteries for use in the electric vehicle, aviation and electronics sectors.

Syzygy Plasmonics, a Houston-based spin-out from Rice University, won the TERA-Award Bronze category, and $50,000, for its light-powered technology that is helping to decarbonise chemical manufacturing processes. By replacing fossil-fuelled heat with photo-catalysis, using engineered nanoparticles to trigger reactions with light instead of combustion, the company says it has reduced emissions and can offer cost-effective, scalable solutions for producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), methanol, syngas, and hydrogen.

Organised by Full Vision Capital and now in its fourth year, the TERA-Award ceremony was held outside Hong Kong for the first time ever this year – at King’s College, University of Cambridge, in the UK, on 18 July. There were 785 entries from 76 countries and regions. ‘This year’s winners come from Australia, China, the UK, the US, Singapore and Spain, reflecting the growing international appeal and impact of the TERA-Award,’ say the organisers.

Dr Peter Lee, Principal of Full Vision Capital and Founder of the TERA-Award adds: ‘Entrepreneurship is a road filled with obstacles, particularly in the energy sector. The TERA-Award is a bridge between ideas and markets, where they can make transformational impacts on lives and the planet.’

*The TERA-Award is an international smart energy innovation competition focused on accelerating the development and application of climate technologies. ‘TERA’ relates to the unit of power ‘terawatt’ (TW).