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Corporate Sustaninability

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Submitted By shalabh
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Corporate Sustainability
Purpose of Existence of Empower:

Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (EMPOWER) was established in 2003 by the ruler's decree, as a joint venture between DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority) and TECOM (Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone) to provide efficient District Cooling Services (DCS) to developments in Dubai and the surrounding region. The purpose of existence of Empower is to achieve Dubai’s goal towards sustainability. According to share holders, Empower formation was mainly to play an important role in the growth sustainability of Dubai which is modern era fastest developing city of the world. Empowers district cooling services significantly reduces both energy costs and the environmental impact by reducing the amount of power required and increasing efficiency.

Empower is formed with the vision to save energy for future generations to come. When Dubai started working towards it Strategic Goals of 2015, lots of initiatives are taken by Government of Dubai towards construction of prestigious projects. In Middle East Air conditioning is not a luxury rather a need & necessary. Dubai predicted increase in population and need for A/c was increasing which in turn was creating demand of Electrical Energy, but Dubai wants to save energy in its growth towards sustainability. Since major energy consumption was predicted through A/C Empower was created to Save Energy on a Special Decree from the ruler of Dubai.

What is District Cooling?

District cooling means the centralized production and distribution of cooling energy. Chilled water is delivered via an underground insulated pipeline to office, industrial and residential buildings to cool the indoor air of the buildings within a district. Specially designed units in each building then use this water to lower the temperature of air passing through the building's air conditioning system.

The output of one cooling plant is enough to meet the cooling-energy demand of dozens of buildings. District cooling can be run on electricity or natural gas, and can use either regular water or seawater. Along with electricity and water, district cooling constitute a new form of energy service.

District cooling is measured in refrigeration ton which is equivalent to 12000 BTU's per hour. Refrigeration Ton is the unit measure for the amount of heat removed. Refrigeration Ton is defined as the heat absorbed by one ton of ice (2000 pounds) causing it to melt completely by the end of one day (24 hours).

Typical layout diagram of COGEN and District Cooling System
[pic]
Advantages of District Cooling System:

District cooling helps the environment by increasing energy efficiency and reducing environmental emissions including air pollution, the greenhouse gas (GHG) carbon dioxide (CO2) and ozone-destroying refrigerants. Most Middle Eastern governments are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. With most countries in the region having extremely high GHG emissions per capita, this issue will become increasingly important for government policy.

District cooling can reduce annual CO2 emissions by about 1 ton for every ton of district cooling refrigeration demand served. The envisioned district cooling potential in the Middle East (cumulative total of 2.9 million tons of refrigeration demand by 2015) could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 2.8 million tons annually.

In addition, there are below advantages:

a) Economies of scale due to the set up of centralized plants instead of individual cooling plants in each building.

b) Reduced capital and operating costs, reduced air-conditioning set-up for each building Cost benefits from substantially lower electricity usage and reduced maintenance.

c) Enhanced efficiency and reliability, space savings, flexibility of air-conditioning loads, considerably longer plant life.

d) Environmentally friendly; enables the use of alternative and cheaper fuels.

e) Savings in Capital Investment to Building Owners

History Of District Cooling:

The oldest district heating system was created in the early fourteenth century in Chaudes-Aigues Cantal - a village in France. This system distributed warm water through wooden pipes and it is still in use today.

The first commercial district heating system was created by Birdsill Holly in Lockport, New York in 1877. Holly used the boiler as the central heat source and built a loop consisting of steam pipes, radiators, and even condensate return lines. His system started off with fourteen customers. Only 3 years later, it served several factories as well as residential customers and had extended to a 3-mile loop.

District cooling also has its roots in the nineteenth century. It was introduced as a scheme to distribute clean, cool air to houses through underground pipes. The first known district cooling system began operations at Denver's Colorado Automatic Refrigerator Company in late 1889. In the 1930's, large district cooling systems were created for Rockefeller Centre in New York City and for the U.S. Capital Buildings in Washington, D.C.

Journey towards sustainability:
Empowers journey towards sustainability begins from its inception. Following are the initiatives taken by Empower in it various stages of business.

1) Strategic Initiatives: From corporation sustainability point of view, being new concept, the first challenge was to get convince the master developer of new development of Dubai and get the business. To secure business, Empower signed master developer agreement with all master developers under Dubai Holding to ensure that in all the buildings coming under the master developer will go for DC to save energy. Empower signed agreement to provide chilled water in various new development in Dubai and so far installed capacity of about 350000 TR, which resulted in reduction in consumption of electricity of approximately 280 MW.

2) Design Initiatives: Empower selected chillers which were not using harmful CFCs as refrigerants. The chillers were using with R134a which is the best refrigerant available. Also, Empower used design using primary/ secondary combination, which is the most efficient design available as on date in the industry. Empower appointed consultant who used the latest technology available which is the most energy efficient. The designs were very compact and the space utilization was the best within Middle East standards.

3) Project Initiative: In the construction stage Empower ensured that all the contractors & suppliers are meeting requirements of International standard for Environment (ISO14001:2004). In all the construction projects Empower as a client implemented a systematic Environmental Management plan to achieve sustainable results from the planning stages of the project. Systematic training, waste management & energy management guidelines are strictly implemented at Empower project sites. Contractor’s awareness sessions organized towards environmental issues to be taken care during construction stage. This resulted less waste during construction for power and water. Construction workers were encourages saving power and water during construction and Empower rewarded workers for this purpose. Empower also created positive competition amongst various contractors and audit was conducted on various sites based upon set criteria for environmental awareness and the best performance contractor organization was facilitated in a function. This initiative resulted competing amongst contractor and positive framework during construction stage. Empower appointed consultant to study environmental impact assessment for each of the plant and the recommendations were implemented during execution stage even through statutory compliance was available.

4) Operations initiative: This is one of the most challenging areas where Empower is focusing as the very purpose of the setup of the organization to be energy efficient. District cooling results around 40% less electricity consumption with 1.1 KW of power consumption against 1.8 KW of traditional power to produce 1 Tons of refrigeration. Empower setup internal target of less than 1 KW of power per TR of chilling capacity and by improving efficiency currently achieved 0.92 KW / TR. The following initiatives were taken during operations to improve efficiency:

4.1 Control based upon pressure difference rather than flow – Initially consultant designed chilling plant which was based upon flow requirement and it was observed that nearby building are too much cooled and cooling is not distributed evenly. Hence, Empower initiated changes and make control philosophy based upon differential pressure, which resulted savings on flow (water) with improved results.

4.2 Use of Grey Water (Setup of RO Plant) – Dubai Water and Electricity Authority (DEWA) initiated guidelines of non-usage of sweet water supplied by DEWA. Empower immediately made risk analysis considering water will be a scare resource not easily available and made feasibility study of using grey water from sewerage plant which is being used for irrigation and available easily in the new developments. Accordingly, Reverse Osmosis plants were setup within district cooling plants, in order to increase re-using of water. This initiative not only leads to cost saving but also the process becomes more independent with less dependency on DEWA water. The set up cost of reverse osmosis plants was recovered within one year of operations.

4.3 Automation of the system – Empower automated all the energy transfer stations within the buildings through fibre optic cables, which resulted huge energy savings and the flow is being controlled depending upon the load of the building. The signal from the building restricts overuse of pump and flow and limits to the requirement of the building.

4.4 Leak Detection System – All Empower underground piping has been equipped with leak detection system, which is resulting improved efficiency during operations.

Empower is very much focused on energy efficiency which is the key for its sustainability within the region. Company is taking lots of initiatives towards energy efficient. Water has been identified as one of the potential risk, hence, Empower is also looking for different option of using grey water, sea water in the application. Also, power has been identified as another potential risk, hence we are also looking forward using co-generation chillers which produce chilled water during day time and producing power during night time. The main aim of the corporate sustainability is being energy efficient.

The information produced in this paper is confidential and not to be published/ reproduced without the permission of the author or the company in writing.

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