Using sunshine for cooling: Indonesia’s most-effective solar-powered cold storage
Less wastage, higher incomes, less diesel: In Bogor, Indonesia’s most-effective, solar-powered cold-storage demonstrates how climate-friendly cold chains could work in practice in the future.
Indonesia’s powerful solar-powered cold storage began operating in mid-August 2026 on the premises of the University of Bogor. From the outside, the facility looks like any other – there are three cold chambers, and compressors hum. The difference becomes clear when you take a look at the roof: multiple rows of solar modules provide the entire cooling system with power, partially off-grid, as the public power grid is unstable in some parts of Indonesia.
The three chambers are tailored to different tasks: one keeps meat frozen at -18°C, a second provides energy-efficient defrosting at 1°C, while a third keeps vegetables fresh at 7°C. The low-temperature chamber, which uses the most energy by far, runs entirely on its own photovoltaic battery system. R290, or natural propane, is used as a refrigerant. Compared to conventional refrigerants, it has little effect on global warming.
For Indonesia, the world’s largest island nation, this is more than a technical gimmick. When power grids are unstable and there are gaps in the cold chain, more than 40 per cent of the catch or harvest spoils before it can be sold, above all in the fisheries sector. This is precisely where the cold storage facility comes in: it ensures quality along the supply chain and thus cuts wastage, and the solar modules reduce dependency on diesel.
An international alliance of research and business
The facility was possible thanks to an alliance of various different partners: the University of Bogor provided the site in the Agribusiness and Technology Park and was responsible for construction financing. The German start-up Solar Cooling Engineering and the Institut für Luft- und Kältetechnik (ILK) Dresden developed the technical design, coordinated by the consulting firm Integration Umwelt & Energie. The cooling technology itself is largely from Germany: central components are from the medium-sized enterprises Güntner and BITZER, with additional technology from SMA Solar Technology, Siemens, ZIEHL-ABEGG, ebm-papst and Intarcon. On the Indonesian side, the photovoltaic provider PT Surya Energi Indotama Hardware contributed. GIZ coordinated the project.
Frank Stegmüller, local GIZ project manager, says: ‘With the solar-powered cold storage in Bogor, we are demonstrating that cold chains can work universally and reliably – wherever the sun shines. This is an important step towards resilient supply chains and climate-friendly cooling.’
From the ice maker to cold storage
The idea behind it is not new. GIZ has been working on solar-powered ice makers in Indonesia since 2016. The ‘solar ice makers’ use natural refrigerants in addition to solar power. Fresh fish is then cooled using the sustainably produced ice blocks.
The first solar ice maker went into operation in 2022. Since then, facilities have been tried out at various locations. The facility in Kawa Village in the Maluku Province was very successful, for example: here, fish producers and participating fishers generate additional income of around USD 120,000, because they can sell their cooled catch at a higher price. A further two cold storage facilities are currently being constructed for the Moluccas, funded by a partnership with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) and IPNLF. More than EUR 1 million has been mobilised for this in total.
To disseminate the concept, GIZ published production guidelines for solar ice makers in 2025. The cold storage in Bogor is now transferring the underlying principle to cold chains for agriculture and meat processing for the first time. The proof of concept is not only beneficial for Indonesia. It is also a testing ground for German cooling technology under tropical conditions – in one of South-East Asia’s fastest growing cooling markets.
Whether the facility in Bogor will become a model for the whole of Indonesia now depends on scaling. GIZ is pushing to integrate the concept into nationwide programmes that focus on the basic food supply in the future and to scale it using commercial business models. If this is successful, solar-powered cold storage facilities could reduce harvest losses, stabilise incomes and decrease diesel consumption in many regions of Indonesia.