Dubai is currently home to more than 600 hotel establishments

Empower, the district cooling provider in the Middle East, has announced that it currently supplies around 54,000 (RT) Refrigeration Tonnes to Dubai’s hotel industry, representing 15% of its total portfolio.

This figure, said Empower, is expected to rise further, given the volume of hotels that are in the pipeline to support Dubai’s plan to welcome 20 million tourists by 2020, which will provide opportunities to adopt district cooling technologies in the hotel industry.

Announcing the figures on the first day of The Hotel Show in Dubai, held at Dubai World Trade Centre from 28 to 30 September, Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Empower, said: “Dubai is seeing continued growth in development across the Emirate in terms of both hotels and hotel apartments and also in terms of the world-class infrastructure there is in place, such as Dubai metro and Dubai International airport. Demand for district cooling is also increasing simultaneously and Empower is committed to supporting Dubai’s future growth by upgrading our existing plants and developing a number of new ones.”

About 16 new hotel establishments have reportedly opened in Dubai since 2012, bringing the total number of establishments to 603 hotels. The use of district cooling will increase alongside the increase in Dubai’s hotel offering as hotels operators in the Emirate seek to reduce their carbon footprint, Empower claimed.