Doha: Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) represented by District Cooling Services Department is conducting a feasible study to help set up investment projects of district cooling (DC) plants enabling individual villas and houses to benefit from the most efficient cooling system.
“DC plant cuts 40 percent electricity consumption, reduces maintenance costs and runs longer up to 25 years compared to the conventional cooling system which needs to be replaced within five to seven years,” said Director of District Cooling Services Department, Eng. Abdulaziz Al Hammadi.
Speaking in a Qatar TV programme yesterday, Al Hammadi said that the District Cooling System needs a plant with minimum cooling capacity of 5,000 tonnes for its efficiency which covers 400 to 500 villas therefore it is not feasible to set up a separate DC plant for one or two villas.
“Now District Cooling Services Department is conducting a feasible study on a plan to make the DC plants feasible for individual villas through investment projects,” said Al Hammadi.
He said that the developer and operator will make investments in setting up plants and offer supplying utility through pipeline network to villas so the owners would need not install any conventional air-conditioner units.
“The chilled water from the plant will be supplied through pipes to the villas. With the help of heat-exchanger, the chilled water will be distributed for the cooling system of private villas,” said Al Hammadi.
He said that the user will have to pay monthly charges for the service in place of paying money at a time for setting up conventional air-conditioned system and spending on regular maintenance.
“Now we are studying the project. If the study finds the project feasible, the service will be rolled out to the houses,” said Al Hammadi.
Speaking about the total cooling capacity and share of district cooling in the country, Al Hammadi said that as per existing statistics of Kahramaa, the total cooling generation of Qatar was 5.5 million tonnes in 2020. “The district cooling shared one million tonnes and the remaining 4.4 million tonnes cooling was generated through conventional air-conditioning,” said Al Hammadi.
He said that the one million tonnes of district cooling was generated by 48 DC plants which are operating across the country.
“The DC plants are serving all stadiums, the venues of FIFA World Cup 2022, tourist places in Qatar like Msheireb Downtown Doha, The Pearl-Qatar, Tower Area in Al Danfa, a cluster of over 50 towers,” said Al Hammadi.
He said that the District Cooling Services Department has been at Kahramaa as a regulatory body of DC plants in the country.
“The DC plants are investment and development projects. For example an investor approaches to a developer seeking to establish a DC plant to operate for 25 years and to take profits against his investments,” said Al Hammadi.
He said that there are three parties in DC plant operation – investor, developer and consumer. “The purpose of the District Cooling Services Department is to ensure a smooth operation by solving any problem if arises in this regard,” said Al Hammadi.
