The Challenge

A leading UAE district cooling provider sought to enhance efficiency across an extensive portfolio of District Cooling Plants (DCPs), capitalizing on expansion opportunities in the Gulf region’s property development market. The initial plant targeted for improvement consumed significantly more energy than benchmarked peers. Limited instrumentation and sensors meant the plant operated entirely manually, with no digital energy monitoring or automated fault detection. Several major equipment components were non-operational due to tube leakages and corrosion, preventing the plant from meeting peak demand as designed. High harmonic distortion further compromised equipment and instrumentation performance. Together, these inefficiencies were driving steadily rising operational costs.

The Solution

To address these challenges, Ark Energy developed and executed a portfolio-wide energy optimization and operational modernization program spanning 11 plants. The primary goals were to reduce overall energy consumption and operational costs, and to digitalize processes and optimize chilled water production. The program began with the DCP whose specifications are outlined below:

Table 1
The features of the initial District Cooling Plant that was tackled by Ark Energy

Acting as the client’s consultant, Ark Energy commissioned a regional Energy Service Company (ESCO) to deliver an ASHRAE-level energy audit targeting O&M issues, comprehensive Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs), detailed engineering and design, installation and commissioning, and Measurement & Verification services. The Ark Energy team supervised and reviewed all work performed by the ESCO.

Key energy conservation measures implemented included:

• Chilled water optimization to improve overall plant efficiency, including condenser piping upgrade and related modifications
• Installation of a local DCP SCADA and instrumentation
• O&M Digitalization protocols and technology to enable a fully automated unmanned machinery space (UMS)

Results

During the baseline period (November 2019 to October 2020), the plant delivered 89,614,550 ton-hours of cooling while consuming 79,247 MWh of energy (including solar production). Total utility costs amounted to 41.5 million AED — with the breakdown shown below.