Why Cooling is the Next Frontier in Industrial Decarbonization
- Suzanne Matulis
- Aug 25
- 3 min read
The overlooked blind spot in climate tech that’s ready for disruption
When most people think about industrial decarbonization, they picture smokestacks, steel mills, or carbon capture pipelines. But there’s a quieter, less visible contributor to emissions and water use hiding in plain sight across industrial sites, data centers, and power plants: cooling systems—specifically, cooling towers.
It’s time to recognize cooling as one of the biggest untapped opportunities in climate technology—and a frontier where impact and innovation are both urgently needed.
🔍 The Cooling Blind Spot
Cooling towers are everywhere. They regulate temperatures in power plants, oil refineries, semiconductor fabs, data centers, and commercial buildings. Yet they’re often excluded from decarbonization roadmaps, despite their massive environmental footprint.
Consider this:
Cooling systems consume ~13% of total U.S. electricity, largely to run fans, pumps, and chillers.
They account for ~6% of total freshwater withdrawals—mostly lost to evaporation.
Inefficient towers and poor visibility lead to overuse of energy, chemicals, and water—often without operators knowing.
In short: cooling is a leaky system—wasting water and energy simultaneously—and one that’s rarely optimized or measured in real time.
⚡ Why Cooling Matters for Climate Goals
For hard-to-abate sectors like energy, chemicals, or advanced manufacturing, cooling represents a hidden wedge of emissions reduction potential. Here’s why:
1. Cooling Inefficiencies Inflate Scope 1 and 2 Emissions
Every kilowatt-hour spent over-pumping, over-fanning, or over-chilling contributes to a facility’s carbon footprint. Cooling towers that fail to reach target return temperatures force chillers, turbines, or process systems to work harder—raising energy intensity and emissions.
2. Water-Energy Nexus = Multiplicative Impact
More water use = more pumping and treatment = more energy consumption. Conversely, cutting plume losses or blowdown saves water and the energy needed to move and treat it.
3. It’s an Upgrade-Friendly System
Unlike deep infrastructure changes, cooling towers are accessible and modular—making them perfect for retrofit technologies like Infinite Cooling’s WaterPanel™ and TowerPulse™. With short payback periods and minimal disruption, they offer a rare “easy win” in climate strategy.
🧠 Why Has Cooling Been Overlooked?
No regulatory spotlight: Unlike boilers or stacks, cooling towers rarely appear in compliance audits.
Fragmented data: Most facilities don’t have real-time visibility into water losses, tower energy use, or performance degradation.
Diffuse ownership: Cooling is often split across operations, facilities, and EHS teams—making accountability blurry.
But that’s changing. With the rise of ESG reporting, water risk disclosures, and sustainability-linked incentives, cooling is being pulled into the spotlight—and companies are realizing just how much is at stake.
What Disruption Looks Like: Smarter, Cleaner Cooling
Today, Infinite Cooling is bringing visibility and efficiency to cooling towers with two core technologies:
TowerPulse™: A real-time sensor + analytics platform that monitors water losses, energy use, and thermal performance. It enables:
Condition-based maintenance
Predictive analytics
Fan/pump optimization
GHG and water savings tracking
WaterPanel™: A retrofit system that captures evaporative plume water and returns it to the system. It helps to:
Reduce makeup water needs
Reduce demineralized water production costs
Cut down discharge volume
Enhance sustainability metrics without changing core tower infrastructure
Together, these solutions help industrial facilities decarbonize their cooling loop, improve water resilience, and generate verified savings.
Cooling as a Climate Tech Growth Area
As the global climate tech market grows, cooling is emerging as a high-leverage, underexplored segment. It checks every box for meaningful impact:
Criteria | Cooling’s Opportunity |
High emissions potential | Reduces Scope 1 and 2 and water-linked Scope 3 emissions |
Large addressable market | Nearly every industrial facility has cooling towers |
Quick deployment | Modular, scalable retrofits with quick paybacks |
Regulatory tailwinds | Water risk, ESG, and energy efficiency incentives |
Cooling is no longer a back-office utility. It’s a climate opportunity.
🔚 Conclusion: Cool Smarter, Not Harder
In the race to decarbonize industry, cooling towers have gone unnoticed for too long. But with rising water stress, ESG scrutiny, and energy costs, that’s about to change.
Smart, clean, and connected cooling is the next frontier—and the disruption is already underway.
Ready to decarbonize your cooling loop? Talk to Infinite Cooling to explore retrofits, pilots, or integrated water-energy savings strategies.