Grundfos and Universities Launch SWiM Project to Develop Sustainable Cooling for Megacities

Grundfos has announced a new collaboration with three universities to develop sustainable cooling systems for the world’s largest cities, where rising temperatures, population growth and demand for air conditioning are placing growing pressure on electricity systems.

The initiative, called Sustainable Water-based Cooling in Megacities, or SWiM, brings together Grundfos, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Aalborg University and Aarhus University in Denmark. The project is focused on intelligent, water-based cooling systems that can reduce energy consumption for cooling in major cities by up to 30%, while lowering costs and carbon emissions.

The project is backed by a US$9.4 million grant, equivalent to DKK 60 million or S$12 million, from the Grundfos Foundation. According to Grundfos, the university research is aligned with the national climate goals of Singapore and Denmark. Singapore is targeting net-zero emissions by 2050, while Denmark has committed to climate neutrality by 2045.

The project comes at a time when cooling is becoming a major part of the global net-zero challenge. As heatwaves become more frequent and urban populations grow, cooling is increasingly essential for public health, labour productivity, food systems, hospitals, schools, data centres and commercial buildings. However, conventional cooling systems can be highly energy-intensive, especially during peak demand periods, and may add to emissions when powered by fossil-fuelled electricity.

Why Megacities are Central to the Cooling Challenge

The SWiM project is focused on megacities, usually defined as urban areas with populations of more than 10 million. These cities face a particularly complex cooling problem. They often combine high population density, large commercial building stock, rapid construction, intense traffic, heat-retaining surfaces and limited green space. In hot and humid climates, cooling demand can become one of the dominant drivers of electricity consumption.

Grundfos notes that demand for cooling is expected to more than triple by 2050, according to the United Nations, especially in megacities. The company describes the core dilemma as the need to make cities liveable while avoiding a major increase in energy use and carbon emissions from traditional cooling systems.

This concern is supported by wider energy data. The International Energy Agency says indirect CO₂ emissions from space cooling nearly tripled between 1990 and 2022, reaching just over 1 gigatonne of CO₂ in 2022. The IEA also highlights that space cooling creates additional climate risks through refrigerant leakage, as some refrigerants have global warming potentials far higher than CO₂.

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Cooling Watch 2025 report also warns that cooling demand could more than triple by 2050 under a business-as-usual pathway. UNEP links this growth to rising incomes, population growth, more extreme heat and increased access to cooling technologies in lower-income households.

What SWiM Aims to Develop

SWiM is intended to rethink how large cities are cooled by combining research in water systems, energy planning, artificial intelligence and smart control technologies. According to Grundfos, the initiative will focus on cooling systems that are primarily powered by renewable energy, with the aim of minimizing emissions.

The project will work across several technical tracks. These include developing urban energy planning tools based on renewable energy sources, using artificial intelligence to monitor system efficiency, detecting faults, guiding predictive maintenance and designing algorithms that can balance cooling needs with energy efficiency and grid stability.

This combination is important because efficient cooling is not only a question of better equipment. Cooling systems also need to be designed, operated and maintained well over time. Faults, poor controls, incorrect sizing and inefficient pumping can significantly reduce performance. Predictive maintenance and digital monitoring could help ensure that cooling systems continue to operate efficiently after installation.

Water-based cooling systems could also play a role in district-scale or building-scale energy strategies. In dense urban areas, shared or centralised cooling systems may offer efficiency gains compared with fragmented, individual air-conditioning units. When combined with renewable electricity, thermal storage and smart controls, these systems can help shift or reduce electricity demand during peak hours.

Grundfos’ Role and Industry Relevance

Grundfos said it is joining the project to help develop cooling technologies that work beyond laboratory conditions and can be applied in real urban settings. Bent Jensen, Executive Vice President and Divisional CEO of Commercial Building Services at Grundfos, said the company sees potential in combining its technological expertise with research from the universities involved.

The participation of an industrial partner is significant because cooling innovation often faces a gap between research and deployment. Technologies need to be technically effective, but also affordable, reliable, easy to install and compatible with existing buildings and infrastructure. Grundfos said the project hopes to attract additional industry partners to help make the resulting solutions practical, scalable and easy to implement.

For building owners, developers and facilities managers, this kind of research could become increasingly relevant as energy costs rise and climate reporting requirements become more detailed. Cooling can represent a substantial share of electricity use in commercial buildings, hotels, hospitals, shopping centres and residential towers in warm climates. More efficient cooling systems could reduce operating expenditure while supporting corporate emissions targets.

For utilities and grid operators, lower cooling demand can reduce peak loads during heatwaves. This is important because peak cooling demand often occurs at the same time across a city, creating stress on generation and distribution systems. If cooling systems can be controlled intelligently and integrated with renewable energy, they may help reduce the need for fossil-fuelled backup capacity.

A Practical Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Issue

Cooling sits at the intersection of climate adaptation and climate mitigation. On one side, access to cooling is becoming more important as extreme heat affects health, productivity and urban liveability. On the other, expanding cooling through inefficient systems risks increasing electricity demand and emissions.

The SWiM project reflects this balance. Its objective is not to reduce cooling access, but to make cooling systems less carbon-intensive and more efficient. That distinction is particularly important for fast-growing cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America, where cooling demand is expected to rise as populations urbanise and living standards improve.

The project’s ambition that around half of the demonstrated products developed through SWiM could become commercially viable also points to a practical goal: turning research into deployable technologies. If successful, the project could contribute to a wider market for water-based, digitally managed and renewable-powered cooling systems.

Cooling as Part of the Net-Zero Infrastructure Agenda

For net-zero strategies, cooling is becoming harder to ignore. Buildings, power systems and urban infrastructure are increasingly connected. A poorly designed cooling system can increase emissions and grid stress, even in a city that is expanding renewable energy. A well-designed cooling system can cut demand, improve resilience and support electrification.

SWiM will therefore be watched not only as a research project, but as a potential model for how industry and universities can collaborate on urban infrastructure challenges. The project brings together Singapore’s experience with tropical urban conditions and Denmark’s expertise in energy systems and water technology.

As cities prepare for hotter decades, sustainable cooling will become a central part of climate planning. The key question is whether new systems can be scaled quickly enough, and cheaply enough, to meet rising demand without locking megacities into higher emissions. SWiM is one attempt to answer that question through applied research, digital optimisation and industry collaboration.

Source: www.grundfos.com