Cooling networks: a low-carbon alternative to air conditioning
As summers grow ever hotter, individual air conditioning is spreading, but it releases heat into cities, consumes a lot of electricity and often relies on polluting refrigerants (PFAS). Les Échos highlights the alternative of cooling networks: a plant captures a renewable or recovered cold source (groundwater, rivers, geothermal energy…), chills water distributed through pipes to buildings, sometimes with ice storage to absorb demand peaks. Still emerging in France, these networks are set to grow strongly as demand for cooling rises.
This is exactly Value Park's field: SWAC is a cooling network fed by deep sea water, a 100% renewable source, with no fluorinated gases, reaching an EER above 10 and up to -80% of cooling electricity.
Source: Les Échos, 15 juillet 2026