Industry
News
opment on the northern waterfront of Manama City, Bahrain. It
includes commercial towers, banking headquarters, shopping malls,
five-star hotels and residential townships that will cater to more
than 25,000 residents.
“We see this as the beginning of a new trend of using seawater
as cooling water for large district cooling plants in the Middle East
region,” said Vivek Apte, regional marketing manager for large-capacity chillers.
The chiller order comes from Unicorp International Contracting
WLL Bahrain, the engineering/procurement/construction contractor
to Dalkia for the Bahrain Bay utilities project. Dalkia is the facilities
manager and district cooling service provider for the project.
According to Shuaib Baig, Bahrain’s sales manager, the chillers
will be installed in a series counter-flow configuration that will yield
an additional 6 percent gain in efficiency. At peak operating conditions, the chillers will supply about 67,500 gpm of chilled water
to Bahrain Bay residents. The York chillers are manufactured at
Johnson Controls’ facility in San Antonio, Texas.
Reducing Palm Jumeirah System’s
Water Requirements
Metito, the United Arab Emirates-based waste treatment firm,
has announced the completion of an advanced reverse-osmosis
polishing plant that will process 18,000 cu m (635,663 cu ft) of
treated sewage effluent (TSE) per day and drastically reduce the
water requirements of the Palm Jumeirah’s cooling system.
The contract included the design, detailed engineering, procurement, installation and commissioning of the plant on the
trunk of the Palm. Metito Overseas will operate and manage the
complex for five years.
The plant takes treated effluent and converts it to high-quality,
organics-free industrial water that is suitable for feeding the district
cooling system. This solution represents an environmentally responsible
breakthrough that will reduce district cooling water requirements
by around 6. 5 million cu m (around 229.5 million cu ft) per year.
The plant’s location brought many challenges. Because of the
Palm’s high land values, the space available for buildings and
associated facilities was extremely limited. Metito overcame this
issue by housing the plant in a circular building 17 m ( 55. 8 ft) below
sea level – which brought with it a new set of challenges related
to the geometry, space limitations and underground conditions.
“The Dubai Water and Electricity Authority and the Abu Dhabi
and Water and Electricity Authority are no longer providing water
for district cooling systems – they are giving priority to consumers
due to the shortage of water,” said Bassam El Halabi, Metito’s
business development director.
“Contractors have been given deadlines to change their designs
to either build more desalination plants or use TSE, which costs
less and is easily available. Nakheel was thinking ahead of time by
building this reverse osmosis plant. We came up with a design in
which we constructed the multi-story plant below sea level on a
manmade island – that was quite a challenge.
“So you have treated water reservoirs, on top of which are
the wastewater plants, then comes the polishing unit and at the
top level the reverse osmosis purifying system, which changes the
water to potable quality. The whole idea is to use this water for
district cooling.”
The Middle East, which has 5 percent of the global population,
has just 1 percent of the world’s accessible fresh water. Gulf countries
have relied on desalination, which provides almost 80 percent of
the region’s potable water.
Empower to Cool Entrepreneur
Business Village
Emirates Central Cooling Corp. (Empower) has signed an
agreement with Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Young
Business Leaders for the installation of a 4,000 metric ton district
cooling station at the Entrepreneur Business Village in Deira, Dubai.
The agreement was signed between Ahmad Bin Shafar, chief
executive officer of Empower, and Abdul Baset Al Janahi, chief
executive officer of Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment. By the
agreement, Empower will provide underground supplies of district
cooling to the 774,720-sq-ft building. The facility will house developers
allocated for the Entrepreneur Business Village, a project targeting
new and young entrepreneurs and fostering the development of
small and medium enterprises.
Ahmad Bin Shafar said, “As an ideal alternative to traditional
power systems, district cooling is steadily gaining the attention of
developers for its delivery of clean power services. While most public-private development companies across new Dubai are now adopting
the technology, there is still an urgent need to raise awareness about
its importance and advantages among end users. Our project at
the Entrepreneur Business Village will help us drive the benefits of
district cooling to a new generation of entrepreneurs.”
Amana Awarded Tabreed Plant Contract
Amana Contracting & Steel Buildings has been awarded a
contract to construct the Tabreed District Cooling Plant (DM- 2) for
SNC Lavalin at the Al Rigga Metro Station in eastern Dubai.
Due to height restrictions in the area, the 2,600-sq-m ( 8,520-
sq ft) facility will consist of a ground floor and two basements levels.
The area’s high-density traffic provides a challenge as work will
have to take place during off-peak hours, primarily at night.
Amana Contracting and Steel Buildings is a regional turnkey
contractor with 12 operational offices in Middle East. To learn more
about Amana, visit www.amanabuildings.com.
IDEA welcomes industry and personnel news
from around the world. Please email to
dina.idea@districtenergy.org.
