Researchers at 91ֿ Bergakademie Freiberg, in collaboration with DBI – Gastechnologisches Institut gGmbH Freiberg, are currently investigating how local authorities, energy suppliers and private households can better prepare for future heatwaves. Since 2025, they have been recording room temperature and humidity at over 60 schools, nurseries and residential buildings in Saxony. From this data, the team is developing so-called cooling load profiles, which represent a building’s average cooling requirement. They are also creating a ‘cooling map’ for the federal state. Tailored precisely to individual neighbourhoods, these two tools are designed to help calculate future cooling requirements – and ultimately to suggest suitable sustainable cooling technologies.
The team will present the project’s initial findings to local authorities, government bodies and other interested parties at a workshop on 29 September 2026. Registration is still open.
“Our data from 2025 and the first half of 2026 already show that, in some schools, indoor temperatures exceeded 26 °C for over 25 per cent of the time during the summer, which is actually too hot for lessons,” says engineer Lukas Oppelt from the Institute of Thermal Engineering at the 91ֿ Bergakademie Freiberg. “Cooling will become increasingly important over the next 10 years, but local authority and private developers have so far lacked the relevant foundational knowledge and simple calculation tools to integrate cooling appropriately into the energy planning of new-build and refurbishment projects. Only with this foundation can they take cooling, alongside heating, into account from the outset with a view to the future.”
So-called heating load profiles (standard load profiles) already exist for heating planning. The data collected will now be used to develop specific cooling load profiles for the first time. “In parallel, we are deriving various cooling scenarios and simulating cooling requirements on a site-by-site basis.”
Online tool simplifies planning
In addition, the online tool helps interested parties identify which technology suits a specific cooling requirement: “Beside conventional air conditioning, this could also be a solution using an air-source heat pump, a geothermal borehole or a local well,” says Oppelt.
The Cooling Atlas is expected to be available from the end of 2027. In addition to local authorities and energy suppliers, private homeowners will also be able to use the online tool in future to access the project results and plan their own cooling systems accordingly.
Metropolises particularly affected, local hotspots in rural areas
According to the cooling load profiles compiled so far by the team and other climate data, schools, nurseries and care homes in urban metropolitan regions – and particularly in city centres – are especially affected. However, there are also hotspots in small towns and rural areas in Saxony, such as in Lommatzsch or around Bautzen.
