The session was chaired by Yun Zhou, Senior Environmental Specialist, Sustainable Infrastructure Division, East Asia Bureau, Asian Development Bank，Dr. Bo Shen, Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Feng An, Executive Director of iCET, Mr Jinliang Chen, Deputy Secretary General of the China Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Industry Association, and a number of experts from the refrigeration and power industries presented the latest progress of the technical assistance project at the meeting and discussed the next step forward. Mr Guangxu Wang, Director of the Ningbo Institute of Development Planning, concluded the meeting with a summary of the project's interim results and offered expectations and suggestions for the project's future development.

The specific agenda of the meeting was as follows:

This project, officially launched in September 2019, unites more than ten experts in the fields of green refrigeration, building energy efficiency and green finance from home and abroad to carry out technical support with the city of Ningbo as a pilot, the objective is to help the city of Ningbo improve energy efficiency in the refrigeration sector, reduce the use of hazardous refrigerants and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate impact through the design and development of a diversified business model and innovative financial mechanisms. The project will not only focus on improving the energy efficiency of refrigeration equipment, but will also make use of internet technology to optimise the efficiency of the use of refrigeration resources, creating an "internet + refrigeration" model to achieve systemic efficiency improvements.

At present, the technical assistance project team has carried out two mapping studies of the refrigeration equipment and energy consumption of commercial, industrial and public institutions in Ningbo, covering more than 300 enterprises and institutions. At the same time, we also selected representative refrigeration enterprises and projects for energy efficiency diagnosis, did cost-benefit analysis of some refrigeration technology improvement projects, explored the synergistic application of refrigeration projects and renewable energy, and initially proposed digital innovation solutions to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in the refrigeration sector in Ningbo in the context of the "new infrastructure".

Dr An Feng presented the international best practice experience of policy and financial mechanisms to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the refrigeration sector, and pointed out that our next priority is to put forward actionable and implementable policy recommendations, taking into account the challenges and barriers to the development of green refrigeration in China, especially in Ningbo.

Mr. Guangxu Wang, President of the project, concluded by acknowledging the progress and results achieved at this stage of the project and suggested that we should consider different refrigeration application scenarios in a comprehensive manner in the next phase of work and make more targeted policy recommendations and financing models. At the same time, horizontal communication and cooperation between experts should be strengthened during the project implementation.

Ms Yun Zhou also suggested that the next phase of work should further strengthen horizontal exchanges and synergies between different technical assistance projects of the Asian Development Bank to promote the financing and implementation of more quality green refrigeration projects.