Cooling capacity is the measure of a cooling system's ability to remove heat

Heat

In physics and thermodynamics, heat is energy transferred from one body, region, or thermodynamic system to another due to thermal contact or thermal radiation when the systems are at different temperatures. It is often described as one of the fundamental processes of energy transfer between...

. Common units include tons

Tons

Tons can refer to:* Tons River, a major river in India* the plural of ton, a unit of mass, force, volume, energy or power* short ton, 2,000 pounds, used in the United States...

, and tonnes, which describe the amount of water at a given temperature that can be frozen in a given amount of time. Alternatively, it can be given in units of power such a kilowatt or BTU/h.

The basic SI units equation for deriving cooling capacity is of the form:
Where is the cooling capacity [kW] is the mass rate [kg/s] is the specific heat capacity [kJ/kg/°K] is the temperature change [°C]