Energy Storage based cold storage systems for stationary and transport cold chain systems. Perfectly suited to use in remote areas with unreliable power and renewable power sources.

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THERMAL STORAGE BASED COLD STORAGE SOLUTION
India is the world’s largest producer of fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, spices, select fresh meat, dry
fruits, agriculture-based textile raw materials, roots and tuber crops and eggs. India exported 600,000
metric tons of fish products to nearly half of all the world’s countries. There is a huge challenge of
preserving and distributing fresh produce especially vegetables, milk and fruits across the country giving
rise to high inflation as also spoilage / wastage of food. Also processed foods contribute to only 4% of our
total consumption while it is to the tune of 60-70% in developed countries.
In order to catch up with the rate of processing and reduce the product spoilage, it is imperative for India
to modernize its cold supply chain infrastructure which has been hugely hampered by high costs and poor
power infrastructure issues.
Conventional cold chain technology of concurrent cooling using vapor compression and vapor absorption
require a continuous source of power to maintain the temperatures in a cold chamber. Therefore, for a
stationary cold storage, you need a continuous power supply and several hours of Diesel generator usage
to make up for the frequent black outs. In a refrigerated transport vehicle, you need a continuous diesel
engine input to run the compressor. Putting in perspective, a small 8 feet truck uses almost 1800 liters of
diesel and north of Rs. 1 lac every year for cooling the goods only.
A new alternative to the conventional systems is latent energy storage based cooling system recently
introduced in the Indian market. Latent storage simplified is like an ice pack that can freeze in your
refrigerator to become ice and then melts once used. The basic principle is that when water changes into
ice, it stores more than 20 times the energy than equivalent amount of water at 0o
C.
These systems, based on the design, can enable one to maintain the temperature of the cold storage for
upto 24-36 hours without any additional power input. These systems either use modular heat exchangers
called eutectic plates or small centralized storage tanks inside which a special chemical called “Phase
Change Material” is frozen or melted. Once frozen, the heat exchanger enables regular melting of the
material to maintain a certain temperature range in the system.
For example, in a transport refrigeration application, the system contains an internal heat exchanger with
the phase change material and an outdoor unit with an electric run compressor. When the vehicle is
waiting at a hub, it can be connected to a power source which freezes the internal heat exchanger over 4-5
hours. Once frozen, it can travel 24 hours without any diesel consumption on refrigeration. Taking the
example of the same 8 feet truck, the annual operating cost goes down from Rs. 1 lac to Rs. 35,000 (by
65%). Given that there are no moving parts during travel, the maintenance costs also go down
tremendously.
Such a technology is extremely well suited to conditions in India where continuous power is a
tremendous problem. This can cater from a small kirana shop looking to store milk and ice-cream to a
logistics operator delivering chilled or frozen produce to the market. It has been applied to small carts,
freeze boxes to 40 feet containers. There are also systems developed for its use in air conditioning

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systems at a small commercial level. With the right productization and positioning of this technology, it
can potentially change the way temperature controlled supply chain works in India.
ABOUT TESSOL
TESSOL is a venture funded start-up based out of Navi Mumbai commercializing Latent energy storage
technology for cold chain and air conditioning applications across India. Founded by alumni from IIT,
Harvard and Cornell, the company has a range of chilled, frozen and multi temperature storage solutions
for both stationary and transport cold storage. Currently operating mostly in the western region, the
company is rapidly growing its network of sales and service partners across the country.