Dubai, UAE, 18 December 2018: Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower), the District Cooling services provider, announced the beginning of construction of its new 50,000 Tonnes of Refrigeration (TR), unmanned District Cooling plant, in Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC), through a Press communiqué. The total cost of the plant is AED 250 million and it is part of Empower’s drive to increase the number of District Cooling plants across Dubai, the communiqué said. This is also part of Empower’s ongoing efforts to utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, the communiqué further said.

According to Empower, the JVC plant is the world’s first unmanned and fully automated District Cooling plant. It uses AI to monitor and automatically adjust inflow and outflow of the chilled water, as well as an Advanced SCADA system with the capacity to read 2 million data related to cooling towers, chillers, transformers and water supply, the communiqué said. It also uses award-winning Treated Sewage Effluent (TSE) and Thermal Energy Storage (TES) technologies to serve chilled water, the communiqué further said. The plant’s operational efficiency will reach 0.89 KW/t, using 6 water chillers running on 11 KV of electricity, the communiqué added.

Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO, Empower

Commenting on the new plant, Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO, Empower, said: “Empower is increasing its efforts to promote reliable and high-quality District Cooling services to customers across Dubai. This supports the vision of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to promote Dubai as the world’s most sustainable city and the city with the lowest carbon footprint in the world, by 2050. It also supports the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030 to reduce energy and water consumption to 30% by 2030, and the Dubai Plan 2021, to make Dubai a smart and sustainable city whose environmental elements are clean, healthy and sustainable.”

Empower confirmed that the new plant is designed according to the highest international standards, taking into account the standards of sustainable Green Buildings and the modern urban developments of Dubai, as well as the overall aesthetic appearance of the area and the architecture of surrounding buildings, the communiqué said.

The communiqué said with the addition of the new JVC plant, Empower’s list of District Cooling plants is expected to reach 75 plants by the end of 2018. The communiqué further said that Empower also expects to increase the number of buildings using District Cooling, to reach over 1,090 buildings by this year end.