Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation(Empower) has announced the operation of the worlds first unmanned district cooling plant at Jumeirah Village Circlein Dubai
Unique of its kind, the 3rd generation district cooling plant serves the residents of 52 buildings with a total cooling capacity of 38,000 refrigeration tonnes (RT). Residents of 30 new buildings will be supplied with the cooling services, bringing the total number to 82 buildings, with a total cooling capacity of 49,000 refrigeration tonnes (RT) by the end of 2020.
The announcement of this global achievement coincides with the launching of the activities of the Emirates Innovation Week organised by the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Dubai, during the period from 22 to 28 February, under the theme "Innovates towards the next 50."
Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Empower, said, "Empower's adoption and continuous development of innovative solutions and technologies in the performance of its tasks is in line with the vision of Dubai's leadership aiming at innovating tools and means to invest opportunities and create a better future for future generations."
The new plant in JVC adopts the latest technologies in district cooling systems, including monitoring and adjusting the water flow to and from the cooling plant via the Thermal Energy Storage (TES) technology, which helps reducing the burden on the grid during peak hours. Moreover, the Treated Sewage Effluent (TSE) technology will be used to conserve natural resources.
The plant will be connected to Empower?s Command Control Centre (CCC), which operates with the advanced SCADA system that provides the ability to read more than one million data entries of cooling towers, coolers, transformers and water supplies at Empower's 79 cooling plants.
The new plant, though the first of its kind in the world, will be the first in a series of unmanned operating plants that Empower is preparing to develop with the aim of achieving more energy savings.
Empower has saved a total of 1,224MW electricity worth US$871mn as of 2019-end.
