The construction of a new district cooling plant at Jumeirah Village is 80% complete according to Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower). The plant is billed as the world’s first unmanned and fully-automated district cooling plant and will have a capacity of 50,000 Refrigeration Tonnes once it is complete.

According to a statement, phase one of the plant is expected to be in operation by the end of the year and will begin serving customers in the Jumeirah Village area. The construction of the new plant is part of Empower’s strategy to provide high quality and environmentally friendly district cooling services to its customers.

“The construction of the world’s first unmanned district cooling plant is taking place, as per schedule. The new cooling plant will be connected to Empower’s high tech Command Control Centre, which uses the Advanced SCADA system with a capacity to read two million units of data per minute, related to cooling towers, chillers, transformers and water supply,” said Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Empower.

The plant uses artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and automatically adjust the inflow and outflow of chilled water, as well as thermal energy storage technology, which will optimise the use of on- and off-peak hours, and treated sewage effluent technology to protect natural resources, Empower said.

Shafar added, “The continuation in building the district cooling pipeline network in the Jumeirah Village area is also progressing, in parallel with the construction of the new plant. Empower adopted several sustainability strategies, mainly the UAE Vision 2021 and the UAE Energy Strategy 2050, which seeks to increase the contribution of clean energy in the total energy mix to 50%.”