Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower), one of the largest district cooling (DC) providers based in Dubai, said it has launched a programme that will see the development of the world’s single largest and independent urban district cooling project in the Business Bay area.

Empower anticipates that the project will boost the company’s efficiency rates and give the Business Bay area in Dubai a total capacity of 450,000 refrigeration tons (RT) through six cooling plants and 10 thermal energy storage tanks including the existing and upcoming plants and tanks. It expects to complete all the phases of the development project by the end of this year.

Empower said it attaches a high priority on the development of the district cooling infrastructure in Business Bay, where 4.3 sq km has been developed by Dubai Holding. The leasable area is 7.2 sq km, which includes more than 300 towers.

Currently, Empower operates four new-generation district cooling plants in the Business Bay area, and it plans to interconnect the underground distribution networks between the upper and lower districts to increase the efficiency and redundancy of chilled water distribution in the area, according to Empower.

Special techniques, non-destructive road crossing (NDRC) and micro-tunnelling have been used in the network interconnection project to pass the pipes without disrupting traffic, by digging an approximately 220-m-long tunnel under the Dubai Canal and another tunnel of 100 m under the Marasi Drive Street. The pipes cross under Dubai Canal and Marasi Drive Street in a depth of 26 m. It is considered to be one of the deepest installation of district cooling pipes in the  Middle East by using micro-tunneling methodology.