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Empower to build world’s first unmanned 50,000 RT district cooling plant

Built at a cost of Dh250mn, the project is part of company's expansion plan of increasing the number of district cooling plants across Dubai

by Utilities Middle East staff
Ithra Dubai, Empower sign cooling deal for Deira Waterfront
Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO, Empower

Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation, Empower, to build a new 50,000 Refrigeration Tonnesm, RT, unmanned district cooling plant in Jumeirah Village Circle, JVC.

Built at a total cost of AED 250 million, the project is part of company’s expansion plan of increasing the number of district cooling plants across Dubai, to serve major projects. This is also part of company’s ongoing efforts to spread district cooling services in Dubai, and utilize Artificial Intelligence, AI, technologies.

The JVC plant is the world’s first unmanned and fully automated district cooling plant. It uses AI to monitor and automatically adjust inflow and outflow of the chilled water, as well as Advanced SCADA system with the capacity to read 2 million data related to cooling towers, chillers, transformers, water supply etc. It also uses award-winning Treated Sewage Effluent, TSE, and Thermal Energy Storage, TES, technologies to serve chilled water. The plant’s operational efficiency will reach 0.89 KW/t, using 6 water chillers running on 11KV of electricity.

“Empower is increasing its efforts to promote reliable and high-quality district cooling services to customers across Dubai. We are committed in expanding our projects and operations to meet the increasing demand for district cooling. This will improve our infrastructure by targeting new areas and increasing the number of cooling plants such as construction of the new JVC plant. This will also allow the expansion of our current network, which is expected to reach 100,000 customers by the end of 2018. This supports the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to promote Dubai as the world’s most sustainable city, and the city with the lowest carbon footprint in the world by 2050. It also supports the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030 to reduce energy and water consumption to 30 percent by 2030, and the Dubai Plan 2021, to make Dubai a smart and sustainable city whose environmental elements are clean, healthy and sustainable,” said Ahmad bin Shafar, CEO of Empower.

The company confirms that the new plant is designed according to the highest international standards, taking into account the standards of sustainable green buildings and the modern urban developments of Dubai, as well as the overall aesthetic appearance of the area and the architecture of surrounding buildings.

The new plant in JVC will be added to Empower’s list of district cooling plants, which is expected to reach 75 plants by the end of 2018. Empower also expects to increase the number of buildings using district cooling to reach over 1,090 buildings by this year end.