The total EU stock of beverage coolers is currently 6.3 million, which is nearly 50% of the total number of commercial display refrigerators in use. So far commercial refrigerators have remained outside EC legislation. However, this is likely to change as it is now generally accepted that commercial refrigerators offer significant potential for energy savings. A recent working document for the implementation of the Ecodesign Directive outlines several legislative options that will encourage and mandate significant energy efficiency improvements for beverage coolers. Compared to similar sized domestic refrigerators, the energy consumption of commercial beverage coolers can be over 3 times higher, even after allowing for increased heat loads, due to use of glass doors, for example. This is the result of a combination of factors such as: i) lack of legislation and standardization; ii) user requirements in relation to pull down (cooling rate of products within a set time frame), which means that the refrigeration system of most coolers is significantly oversized; iii) the fact that the large majority of equipment owners do not operate the beverage coolers and hence do not pay for operating cost. This means that cost and design are the most important drivers and not efficiency. We aim to overcome these barriers by development of unique technology that makes effective use of phase change materials (PCM) within beverage coolers. This will allow downsizing of the cooling system, thereby significantly increasing energy efficiency. It is our aim to achieve a 75% saving compared to a base case cooler. The market opportunity will be worth at least €700 million per annum in Europe alone. In order to exploit our development we will introduce a radically new business model that will allow equipment owners and users to share the benefits of energy savings. This will motivate equipment owners to make the additional investment required for more energy efficient equipment