Emirates District Cooling (Emicool), a joint venture of Dubai Investments and Union Properties, has awarded a contract to leading construction group Drake & Scull for designing, building and operating a Dh120-million ($33 million) mega project network to extend chilled water from Hessa Street plant to new developments within Dubai Sports City.

A leading district cooling service provider in the region, Emicool said the new network is set to increase the production capacity to 77,000 tonnes of refrigeration (TR), which will cater to the surging demand of the Dubai Sports City development and increase  Emicool's total customers portfolio to 20,000 in the next two years.

The expansion of the new district cooling network into Dubai Sports City is a more eco-friendly solution compared to conventional cooling systems and will result in an annual reduction of 173 Gigawatt/hour power consumption in Dubai Sports City as also reduce 120,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, which is equivalent to reducing 30,000 cars from Dubai’s streets.

The project is managed by MHPM-Driver and it is expected to be completed by July 2018, it stated.

CEO Adib Moubadder said the new district cooling network will connect complexes, stadiums and buildings in Dubai Sports City and is a major step forward in empowering businesses and consumers with sustainable development and innovative technologies.

"Emicool is proud of its achievements and a project like this reaffirms Dubai’s reputation as a model of green economy and contribute to the emirate’s efforts to become the city with lowest carbon footprint in the world by 2050," stated Moubadder.

Apart from providing chilled water to the customers, the network will also monitor consumption levels within the developments, he added.

According to him, Emicool provides continuous district cooling services to over 15,000 customers across Dubai, with the most efficient and highest quality infrastructure.  Its growing portfolio reaffirms the success of its strategic business model, he added.

District cooling, he stated, uses 40 to 50 per cent less energy than traditional air-conditioning systems, which can account for 70 per cent of a building's electricity bill.

Producing one tonne of refrigeration using conventional air conditioning takes 1.7 kW of power, while district cooling can consume as little as 0.85 kW per tonne. This frees up considerable amounts of energy to be used elsewhere, explained Moubadder.

Emicool chief said the company is planning to increase its plant capacity to 500,000 TR by 2020 as rampant construction is leading to pent-up demand for district cooling services across the UAE and region.

The company’s roadmap in the coming years includes expansion of operations to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, he added.-TradeArabia News Service