Cool Roofs Indonesia is a research project developed by Dr. Beta Paramita, a lecturer of Architecture at the Faculty of Technology and Vocational Education (FPTK) Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia.
Graduated from a Doctoral Program at the University of Kitakyushu Japan, Dr. Beta Paramita is an active researcher in various professional organizations such as RDI (Research Resilience Initiative) which focuses on community, change, environment, and sustainable development as well as the Association of Indonesian Building Performance Simulation.
Cool Roofs Indonesia was supported by the Clean Cooling Collaborative (formerly Kigali Efficiency Program (K-CEP)). Basically, this project is the production of coating which can be used on the roof as well as on the wall to reflect the heat of the sun so that the surface of the roof and the area underneath the coating remain cold. This research project was developed to spread the cold roof to reduce the phenomenon of Urban Heat Island in cities with high daily temperatures in Indonesia.
As a project manager, Dr. Beta Paramita developed her project within the Faculty of Technology and Vocational Education (FPTK) of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia in collaboration with Dr. Ravi Shankar Srinivasan from the University of Florida and Jaime Cruz from Millennium Solution, United States of America (USA).
Currently, the Cool Roofs Indonesia project serves the sale of paint products with a painted area range of more than 1000m2, roof coating consultation for a large scale of more than 1,000m2, building performance measurements including thermal performance, sick building syndrome, and optimization of energy use for industries, offices, and communities.
Cool Roofs Indonesia Wins a Two-Million-Dollar Worth International Competition in 2022
On March 1, 2022, Dr. Beta Paramita and her team, who developed and manufactured the MS-Thermashield type paint under the project named Cool Roofs Indonesia, won the Million Cool Roofs Challenge competition. The two-million USD worth international competition was organized by the Clean Cooling Collaborative and participated by countries from all over the world. As the winner, Dr. Beta will receive a prize of 750,000 USD or more than 10 billion rupiah.
As a pilot project, Cool Roofs Indonesia has covered 70,800m2 of roofs in fifteen cities spread across eight provinces in the country. “These cool roofs have spread from Aceh, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bangka Belitung, and NTT,” Dr. Beta said. The cities are Langsa, Jakarta, Tangerang, Bandung, Sukabumi, Garut, Subang, Tasikmalaya, Jepara, Pontianak, Kupang, and Manado. The type of buildings covered includes industrial buildings (factories), residential (MBR houses), mosques, elementary schools, and government offices.
Prior to the challenge, cool roofs were not part of Indonesian building practices or norms. If products were available, they were not developed locally (they were imported), making this product very expensive. Therefore, Dr. Beta developed this paint to create affordable cool roofs in Indonesia. In plain sight, Cool Roofs paint does not seem to be any different from other paints on the market; besides, this paint is currently only available in white. In the future, they are going to develop another color to meet user needs. “Because this paint is still being developed on a laboratory scale and not on a large scale yet, it still uses basic color. So, it’s a bit difficult to tell it apart from regular paint with the naked eye, “Dr. Eng Beta explained.
Cool Roofs paint produced by the Lab of Science, Technology, and Building Material, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia has been tested and certified by CRRC (Cool Roof Rating Council) with Initial Solar Reflectivity of 0.84 and Thermal Emittance of 0.90. It means this paint is able to reflect 84% of solar radiation and left the heat transfer under the roof at 16%. “It was the CRRC which approved that our production has met their requirements,” she added.
This is proven by the effect of the paint on the roofs of houses in various cities in Indonesia. “One example of the temperature difference that we get is in Tangerang, which was originally 40°C. After painting the roof with Cool Roofs paint, the temperature drops to 29°C in broad daylight,” she stated.
The Urban Heat Island phenomenon has caused the temperature in Indonesia’s urban areas to rise. “The temperature should have dropped by the time the sun goes down. But, because the sunlight is not reflected correctly during the day, it settles on the house materials. This is why Urban Heat Island appears in cities of Indonesia,” said the Cool Roofs Indonesia Project Manager.
Dr. Beta recommends using this paint on the roofs of Indonesian houses because, considering Indonesia is a tropical country, Cool Roofs paint is designed to reduce the indoor temperature. “In cities where it was tested, the indoor temperature was shown to decrease significantly,” she concluded.