Danish engineer Ramboll said it has won a major contract from Saudi-based Umm Al Qura for Development & Construction Company for a 500 MW district cooling project in Makkah.

As per the contract, Ramboll will act as technical advisor for the district cooling scheme in King Abdul Aziz Road Project and deliver conceptual design, employer’s requirements and procurement assistance.

"This is simply a grand project. The project will need 150 MW power to produce the 500 MW of cooling and this has a significant impact on the power network. Our first deliveries will be the design, location and quantity of the chiller plants together with the piping design and advice on the buildings’ connectivity to the pipeline network," remarked Jens Ole Hansen, the head of the international district energy department in Copenhagen.

"And in the second phase we will assist the client in the procurement of the chiller plants," he added.

The contract is part of a plan to build a pedestrian pathway along 3.65-km-long King Abdul Aziz Road, which runs from the city’s western outskirts to the Grand Mosque.

The project includes the construction of two roads, a metro line, a grand mosque and over 200 plots that will house more than 100,000 people on a sprawling 6.3 million sq m area, said Ole Hansen.

Ramboll said over the last eight years, 3,600 dilapidated buildings had been demolished in Makkah in order to clear up space for a new central pedestrian pathway.

The project will be completed in ten years.-TradeArabia News Service