Dubai, UAE: The 5^th Annual District Cooling Stakeholders Summit kicked-off on April 18, where reportedly more than 130 District Cooling industry delegates and government officials had come together to engage in a dialogue on the future of the District Cooling industry in the region. According to a communiqué issued by the event organiser, Fleming, the two-day event will shed light on innovative new technologies in District Cooling and the evolving policy outlook for the industry in the region.

The summit, the communiqué said, commenced with DC Pro Engineering’s CEO, George Berbari’s presentation, titled ‘The Energy Budget: “A well-structured, self-financed, long term plan to solve global warming”, followed by focused sessions on the policy and regulatory landscape by Faisal Rashid, Director of Demand Side Management at the Supreme Council of Energy in Dubai, and Graeme Sims, Executive Director at Regulatory Services Bureau for Electricity and Water (Dubai).

Key highlights of the day, the communiqué revealed, included a panel discussion themed ‘Ways to control cost of district cooling service’, which was moderated by Abhay Bhargava, Regional Head of Energy and Environment, at Frost and Sullivan, with Doreb Ibrahim, Head of Control Center Projects (UAE) at the Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority, Abdulsalam Al-Mobayed, CEO of Saudi Tabreed O&M Company, and Abubakr Jenaid Al Hadrami, Director of O&M at Marafeq (Qatar).

Elaborating on strategy 2030, Faisal Rashid said: “Given the Demand Side Management strategy is one of the main area of focus for Dubai Supreme Counsel of Energy and I would like to call it the most aggressive Energy Efficiency program in the region, it is structured around 9 programs accompanied by enablers as foundation layers, all in one to meet our target objectives of 30% reduction by 2030 vs. business as usual, each program has an owner, implementation road map. They are about policy making, technology development and awareness, we sometimes have to go slower on some programs, faster on others. Some requires soft directive, some require close monitoring of saving, some are more cost effective, easier to implement. At the end, all the programs contribute to energy efficiency and have to make sense commercially and financially when executed.”

The communiqué mentioned that Sanela Habbab, CEO of Emicool, delivered a presentation on central metering and monitoring, and spoke about how the company is bringing global technologies to fore in the Middle East. Par Bjorkman, Segment Manager District Energy at SWEP, reportedly spoke about key parameters in savings and considerations during design planning. “When planning the design, Bjorkman said, “there are several considerations that, during the installation and operation, will save you time, energy and money. How you reach thermal fit, space of installation, prefabrication and proactive cleaning are connected with an optimized design.”

The second conference day, the communiqué said, will witness a keynote address by Dominic McPolin, Chief of the Central Planning Office at the Ministry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning (Kingdom of Bahrain), followed by a session by Ghazi Elsayed Abdelkerim Ibrahim Elsherif, Environmental Engineering Expert, Public Works Authority (Ashghal); Muhammad Ali, Design Manager, Marafeq Qatar and Unnikrishnan Gokulam, Senior MEP Manager, Drake and Scull (UAE). It will also have roundtable discussion on key challenges with District Cooling in the region and extensive case study presentations by Johnson Controls, added the communiqué.