Energy and
Environmental
Policy
District Cooling
and Middle East
Infrastructure Policy
ally includes air-cooled reciprocating
chillers, split direct expansion (DX) systems
and room air conditioners. Some water-cooled centrifugal chillers are installed in
large buildings.
In addition to consuming large amounts
of electricity, conventional cooling equipment in the Middle East operates in a difficult environment, including extreme heat,
windborne sand and in some locations
saline humidity. Over time, performance,
efficiency and reliability suffer, leading ultimately to further reductions in efficiency
and ongoing equipment replacement.
Mark Spurr, IDEA Legislative Director
Three related trends are converging to
create a huge opportunity for district
cooling to provide energy and environmental benefits in the Middle East:
a boom in real estate development
resulting dramatic increases in power
demand driven by new needs for air
conditioning
lack of sufficient generation, transmission
and distribution infrastructure to meet
the projected power demands
Increases in Air-Conditioning
Demand
There is a tremendous demand for
comfort cooling in the Middle East. With
peak temperatures exceeding 115 degrees
F, and with high humidity in some locations,
the need for cooling is enormous. Figure 1
compares the peak summer dry bulb temperatures in major Middle Eastern cities
with examples of U.S. cities with successful
district cooling systems.
Major Middle Eastern markets for
district cooling include the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt,
Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq. District cooling
development has been very active in the
UAE, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain
also emerging as important markets. Kuwait
and Egypt also appear poised for significant
growth. Iraq could become an important
market once it stabilizes politically and
economically.
In addition to substantial development
of new commercial and residential building
space – all requiring air conditioning –
there is a substantial military presence in
the region, for example in UAE, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. This presents
substantial additional opportunities for
application of district cooling.
The market for district cooling in commercial and military settings in the Middle
East has been pioneered by the National
Central Cooling Company (Tabreed), a
UAE-based company. Over the past five
years, Tabreed has established seven new
district cooling systems in the country.
Tabreed has a contracted customer base of
more than 160,000 tons of refrigeration,
serving more than 50 million sq ft of building space.
District Cooling Potential
According to the International Energy
Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2002,
more than $100 billion of capital investment is estimated to be required in the
Middle East power generation sector in the
2000-2030 period to install about 100,000
MW of power generation capacity. With
60 percent to 70 percent of new power
demand driven by air-conditioning requirements, this represents about 40 million
tons of new cooling demand.
Based on power demand projections
and the experience of our industry in the
Middle East, IDEA projects that annual
additions to district-cooled building space
can reach 100 million sq ft by 2007, with
cumulative district-cooled building space
reaching more than 1 billion sq ft by 2015.
Cumulative district cooling capacity in the
Middle East could reach 3 million tons of
refrigeration by 2015.
Figure 1. Design Temperatures for Air
Conditioning, Middle Eastern vs. U.S. Cities.
American Society of Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning
Engineers, 1997 ASHRAE Handbook, Fundamentals.
Conventional Cooling
The conventional approach to air-conditioning systems in Middle East varies
depending on the building type, design
preferences and other factors, but gener-
Infrastructure Policy Issues
In the Middle East, consumer prices
for power are generally low because they
are subsidized by the government, which
owns the power utilities. In some cases
consumer power prices are extremely low,
such as in Kuwait, where consumer power
prices are less than $0.007 per k Wh (fig.
2). These consumer rates are far below the
actual costs of production and delivery.
District cooling can save Middle
Eastern governments substantial costs
associated with power infrastructure and
production. Power plants in the Middle
East are commonly combined with thermal desalination plants driven with power
generation waste heat. Plants may be
fueled with oil or natural gas, depending
on fuel availability. Although natural gas is
