Dubai, UAE, 20 February 2018: District Cooling is the way forward for air conditioning, said Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Empower. Bin Shafar made the statement following the announcement that Empower recorded a net profit of AED 772 million in 2017, with total revenues amounting to AED 1.96 billion, during a press conference on February 19, in Dubai.

Bin Shafar expressed optimism at the robust growth, sharing that Empower currently has a total cooling capacity of 1.34 million tonnes of refrigeration (TR). Currently, Bin Shafar said, Empower has 73 plant rooms serving 1,000 buildings and that the number of customers has increased from approximately 65,000 to 85,000.

“I’m proud of my team,” Bin Shafar said. “The profit increase comes from research and development [through] various stages of the plant rooms. [We undertook some] optimisation to increase efficiency related to [the] profit mechanism [in order] to be more flexible.” The customer, he emphasised, is the focus.

Bin Shafar shared that District Cooling is not merely a service provider, but that it represents a national interest, and the company is focusing its attention on addressing growing demand in the UAE. Highlighting significant projects in 2017, Bin Shafar shared that Empower connected various buildings in Jumeirah Village South and Bluewaters development, in addition to The Opus tower in Business Bay and various hotel developments across Dubai. Touching on upcoming real estate projects, Bin Shafar shared that Empower will be working on the Museum of the Future and Innovation Hub, an upcoming business park.

Bin Shafar emphasised that there is growing trust towards District Cooling from master developers as they are eager to optimise efficiency of projects that require massive investments. “The master developer,” he said, “is 100% sure what we do is correct, otherwise why would he choose District Cooling, if he didn’t find it to be a viable solution that is profitable? [The developer] would not spend AED 3-5 billion on a beautiful project and risk it. Building owners strongly believe that this is the way forward.”