Philippine Cold Stores Spend 25-35% of Revenue on Electricity.
Most of It Is Wasted on Defrost.

FLX is a patent-pending thermosyphon defrost system (PCT/WO2022069581A1) that eliminates electrical defrost heaters entirely. It uses passive heat transfer to defrost evaporator coils with zero electrical draw, saving 9.25 kWh per cycle and maintaining product temperature within 0.5°C during defrost.

Electric defrost typically consumes 21% of total cold store energy. For a medium-sized facility, this equates to ₱41,000-₱61,500 in wasted electricity per year. FLX eliminates this entirely while also reducing product temperature variation that causes quality loss and shrinkage.

R404A contains fluorinated gases classified as PFAS. With GWP of 3,922 and typical leak rates of 15-25% per year, R404A creates significant Scope 1 CO₂e liabilities under SEC PFRS S2. The Kigali Amendment requires HFC phase-down. CO₂ (GWP 1) avoids all PFAS and HFC exposure.

Yes. iCOOL CO₂ uses transcritical operation with adiabatic gas coolers and parallel compression, engineered for high-ambient conditions. The system maintains COP 3.5-4.0 at 35°C ambient through optimised gas cooler design and flash gas bypass.

Non-condensable gases (air, moisture) leak into systems operating below atmospheric pressure, accumulating in condensers and raising head pressure by 5-15%. iCOOL CO₂ operates at positive pressure throughout the entire cycle, preventing NCG ingress and maintaining design efficiency over the system lifetime.

That 20% figure is not a regulatory cap — it is the daytime self-consumption ceiling that solar gives you without storage. Two routes raise it: (1) the DOE's April 2026 circular lifted the net metering cap to 1 MW for commercial sites, and (2) if your solar only feeds your own site, never exporting to the grid (Meralco calls this Zero Export), there is no capacity cap at all. The binding constraint is your ability to absorb daytime generation — which is exactly what Karnot heat pumps plus thermal storage solve, by banking solar as heating, cooling, and hot water for night-time dispatch.

Meralco commercial bills include a demand charge based on the highest 15-minute kVA peak in the billing period. Heat pumps charging a Permafrost or iSTOR thermal battery overnight or during off-peak hours dispatch hot water and chilled water during the daytime peak, so the heat-pump compressor can be sized smaller and run at lower nameplate during the peak window. This shaves the 15-minute peak — often the single largest controllable line on a Philippine commercial electricity bill.

They sell solar panels. Karnot sells the integrated solution that lets solar actually work for a commercial site: solar plus heat pump plus thermal battery, sized to your real load profile and configured behind the meter. We do not install net-metering systems capped at 20% offset. We engineer Zero Export installations sized to whatever your roof and load can carry. The result is typically 60–80% bill reduction instead of the 4–20% that solar-only installs deliver on a 24/7 commercial load.

Sub-12-month paybacks are realistic on integrated retrofits combining solar (Karnot iVOLT), heat pumps (iHEAT R290 or iCOOL CO₂), and thermal storage (iSTOR or Permafrost) at sites paying full commercial Meralco tariff. Standalone retrofits pay back more conservatively — iMESH adiabatic chiller upgrade typically under 12 months, DHW-only retrofit replacing LPG or diesel in 18–24 months. Most installations qualify for BOI Pioneer status and Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285, which shortens payback further. Karnot files the BOI registration paperwork as part of project scope.