Frequently Asked Questions

Cooling as a Service (CaaS), was first heard in 2013 and is an example of the familiar concept of servitization. Those that use CaaS buy air-conditioning on a consumption basis without the need to invest in, maintain or operate any air-conditioning equipment. The service provider assumes all financial and operational responsibility of the entire air-conditioning system (chiller plant and air-side equipment) to deliver the ideal environment for the building. Building owners simply dictate the temperature conditions they want to achieve, and the CaaS provider is accountable for delivering this wherever and whenever required. The service is provided with no upfront cost and the building owner simply pays a fixed monthly fee, or a pay-as-you-use $/RTH rate. The CaaS provider is responsible for all costs associated with running the air-conditioning system including the utilities used by the chiller plant equipment. CaaS takes the responsibility of buying and operating the air-conditioning system, and reducing energy consumption away from building owners. It takes on all future costs related to operations and maintenance.

CaaS offers a win-win solution for all parties. CaaS removes the headache of cooling for end-users, connecting technology partners with long-term customers, and provides major market opportunities for investors. Building owners can reduce their electricity costs, allocate facilities management or maintenance staff to other activities and concentrate on their core business. The CaaS provider does what they do best: delivering cooling as a service and ensuring the system is always operating at top performance through constant monitoring and well-timed maintenance. Plus, similarly to any outsourcing model, CaaS is provided on a flexible contract basis. If a building wishes to exit the agreement they can do so at any time. Besides helping building owners reduce capital expenditure and recurring maintenance costs, CaaS providers also undertake the responsibility of monitoring and controlling the system to maximize operational resilience. Monitoring can also be a tedious, labour-intensive process. CaaS providers use real-time building monitoring and control systems to monitor, measure and track the key performance metrics of the systems.Building owners have full access to the data collected from the monitoring tools for reporting to investors or other stakeholders as well as for submissions to the local authorities when required.

Centralised cooling or district cooling refers to the centralized production and distribution of cooling energy to multiple buildings and user organisations. Chilled water is delivered from a central plant via a network of underground pipes to numerous buildings within a ‘district’, close to the chiller plant. While district cooling offers operational efficiencies from traditional cooling models, in that the system is built for scale, there is still a hefty upfront cost, known as a connection fee, to the building owner/ developer and operational costs are an ongoing responsibility too. This differs from Kaer’s CaaS model where the customer buys air-conditioning on a consumption basis without the need to invest in, maintain or operate any cooling equipment. Kaer assumes all financial and operational responsibility of the entire cooling system (chiller plant and air-side equipment). District cooling contracts are also pretty prohibitive, being long-term with various lock-ins and the threat of potential penalties for various reasons. Kaer’s CaaS is provided on a flexible contract basis. If a building wishes to exit the agreement they can do so at any time. On top of this, the efficiency of the system can be a challenge as typically water is generated at a low temperature to accommodate for losses during the distribution of the water as well as losses at the heat exchangers within the buildings. This means that in order to provide a building with chilled water at 8°C, it can leave the centralised plant at 5-6°C which requires more energy. In addition to this, there is the extra power required to pump the water over long distances to the buildings. In comparison to this, Kaer oversees the monitoring and controlling of the system to maximize energy efficiency. Kaer uses real-time building monitoring and control systems to monitor, measure and track the energy efficiency of the systems. Building owners have full access to the data collected for reporting to investors or other stakeholders as well as for submissions to local authorities as and when required.

The Kaer Water and Kaer Air rate will be determined in an offer to you. Customers are billed on a pay-as-you-use model based on the quantity of chilled water (Kaer Water) and cool air (Kaer Air) consumed each month by the building, which is metered and billed per ton-hour (RTH) of consumption. As Kaer is responsible for the utility bill of the chiller plant system, we will monitor the amount of utilities (e.g. electricity or water) consumed and reimburse the consumption to the building owner by netting off the value from each month’s Kaer Water or Kaer Air monthly fee.

Kaer has the flexibility to design and use reputable brands such as Carrier, Trane, Daikin, York, SmarDT and Climaveneta, that would be most suitable to meet your requirements. Should building owners wish to take back control, they would be able to find service personnel who are familiar and able to service, maintain and upkeep the system.

Yes, customers can track the performance and temperature of each space in real time via the Kaer Connect web portal and app.

Yes, this is tracked via Kaer Connect.

Kaer collects data on the operational performance of the cooling system which is stored on secure cloud servers. The data is only used to operate the cooling systems and is made freely available to the building owner via Kaer Connect

Our CaaS rates are fixed for the period of the agreement and will only change due to fluctuation in external factors such as utility tariffs and inflation.

The typical tenure of a CaaS agreement is 15 years. At any point of the contract period, customers can take ownership back with the use of the Exit Formula with full transparency of all costs by Kaer.