Middle East: Siemens has claimed to have proved that by implementing two of its key technologies for building management and District Cooling, the amount of energy required for cooling can be reduced by up to 40%.

“Cooling is considered to be responsible for approximately 70 percent of the GCC’s electricity demand during peak summer months, so it’s extremely important that we evaluate the entire cooling chain to identify where technology can generate savings,” said Koen Bogers, Senior Executive Vice President, Building Technologies Division, Siemens Middle East. “Digital technologies have huge potential to make our cities more sustainable, and we have proved it is possible to almost halve the energy used for cooling by applying two technologies to the supply and demand sides.”

Courtesy: Siemens

Giving details, the company said that Siemens Demand Flow technology uses specialised algorithms to optimise the entire chilled water system of a cooling plant, delivering energy savings of between 15 and 30%. By simplifying operations, increasing the cooling capacity and improving efficiency, the system, the company highlighted, is able to reduce flow during periods of lesser demand, lowering operation and maintenance costs, and significantly lowering energy use.

The company also mentioned that the system is already in place at the WAFI Mall in Dubai, where it reportedly “achieved a 30 percent saving on utility costs in its first year, representing an annual cost saving of some $439,000 with a guaranteed payback period of two-and-a-half years”, according to Bogers.

The company revealed that the second technology, Desigo CC, is a building management platform that reduces energy usage by controlling and optimising a building’s systems, including ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, shading, fire safety and security services. The impact on a typical building, the company said, is a saving of between 10 and 25% of the energy required for cooling.

Siemens cited that earlier versions of the Desigo building management platform have been implemented in numerous buildings across the Middle East, including Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, Qatar’s Tornado Tower, the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai and Siemens’ own regional headquarters in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City.