Prospect of District Cooling for Kuwait Homes

The Prospective of District Cooling
for Residential Sector in Kuwait

Prof. Abdullatif Ben-Nakhi
Department of Power and Refrigeration
College of Technological Studies - Kuwait

Outline
 Current status of DC in Kuwait
 HVAC market for residential buildings in Kuwait
 General benefits of DC systems
 The need for DC in Residential Suburbs in Kuwait (RSK)
 The feasibility of DC in RSK
 The barriers against utilizing DC in RSK
 Suggestions for tackling those barriers

2 Kuwait District Cooling Summit - 2011 Prof. A. Ben-Nakhi

Outline


DC Projects in Kuwait
Cooling
Project Capacity Sector Type
(RT)
Kuwait University 12,000 Campus Private
(Shuwaikh Campus)
Kuwait Oil Company 8,400 Suburb Private
The Avenues 7,200 Shopping Mall Private
PAAET 6,000 Campus Private
Bayan Palace 5,000 Offices and Private
Convention Center
Ministries Complex 3,600 Offices Private
Kuwait International 3,250 Airport Private
Airport
Kuwait University 112,000 Campus Private
(Shdadiya Campus)

Shuwaikh Campuses


Current Status of DC in Kuwait
 The concept of district cooling in Kuwait is not new, as it has one of the
pioneer district cooling plants installed over 50 years ago.
 Private, such as a multi-building campus, district cooling is common
for new projects in Kuwait.
 Because of the advantages of DC over DX option,
 MEW code of practice (R-6 and R-7) encourages employing chillers by
allowing higher W/m2 (e.g., for shopping mall the W/m2 = 70 for DX and
82 for air cooled chiller)
 However, no district cooling system in Kuwait was installed as a public
utility system.
 This is because public utility district cooling system requires:
 Beside the economic and environmental benefits required by private
DC systems,
support, and
 Community resistance
backup.
 Political ignorance

Outline


Projected HVAC Market for Residential
Buildings in Kuwiat
 Residential buildings consume about 60% of national power (DC
Consortium Report 2009).
 Buildings’ air conditioning
accounts for 70 % of
Kuwait's peak power
demand and over 50 % of
the annual energy
consumption (MEW,
2009).
 Over 70,000 residential
buildings are projected to be
built in Kuwait over five
cities by year 2015 (DC
Consortium Report 2009).

Outline


General Benefits of District Cooling
Systems
 Benefit from district cooling systems in a community can be
grouped into:
 building owners,
 municipality, and
 society at large


Benefits to Building Owners
 Within the owner’s building:
 No on-site HVAC refrigeration cycle.
 Expected frequency of replacement of refrigerants (and subsequently
HVAC units) due to environmental commitments.
 Significantly reduce cost of on-site HVAC operation and maintenance.
 FCU and AHU
 Induction units
 Less space occupied by HVAC system (on roof swimming pool and garden).
 Better for on-site utilization of sustainable or renewable energy sources.
 Outside the owner’s building
 Lower cooling cost
 Higher operation efficiency for the refrigeration cycle
 Cooler local micro-climates (no on-site condensers)
 Utilization of inexpensive or waste energy sources
 Greater HVAC reliability (back up and stand by)

Benefits to Municipality
 Added infrastructure to the community (added value to
involved buildings)
 Opportunities of using local energy sources
 Al-Qurain city can employ gases (mainly methane) emission from
the landfill site as a source of heat for absorption DC cycle
 Better management of local waste
 Jaber Al-Ahmad city can utilize waste heat from Doha power
plants as a heat source for absorption DC systems


Benefits to Society at Large
 Considerably higher potential to protect our environment.
 reduce atmospheric emissions (energy efficiency and practice),
 decrease global warming (refrigerants and practice), and
 cut the release of ozone depleting gases (refrigerants and practice)
 Superior energy conservation prospective.
 higher components’ efficiencies
 advanced design and operation approaches
 Layout of piping network (optimization by AI)
 Configuration of cool production plant
 Adaptive control (use of NN)
 Employment of thermal storage for peak power shaving and replace
part-load chiller operation
 Integrated life-cycle design of DC system

Outline


The need for DC in RSK
 The HVAC related problem:
 Extremely high electricity capacity and power are required for
cooling the projected residential cities (i.e., five cities).
 Significant direct and indirect environmental impacts will be
associated with HVAC systems operation in the new cities.
 The DC-based solution:
 Literature: DC is a matured technology for reducing electricity
requirements and environmental impacts of HVAC systems:
 Efficient refrigeration cycle much better monitored by qualified
technicians
 Remote refrigeration cycle allows utilizing toxic and flammable but
environment friendly refrigerants.
 Proof: in other GCC countries, DC is a proven approach for:
 Energy conservation, and
 GHG emissions reduction (e.g., CDM).

Outline


DC for Residential Areas
 DC systems consist of three primary components:
 Central plant
 Distribution (or piping) network
 Consumer systems (direct or energy transfer stations ETS).
 Transmission and distribution system usually constitutes
most of the capital cost for the overall DC system
 Feasibility is inversely related to the size of the
distribution network.
 Accordingly, DC systems are most attractive in serving
high-density building clusters with high thermal loads.
 Low-density residential areas are usually not attractive
markets for DC systems

Three of the Major Factors for
Feasibility of DC
 High thermal load density: high cooling capacity is needed
to cover the capital investment for the transmission and
distribution system (up to 70% of total cost for DC system)
 High annual load factor: is defined as the ratio of the average
load throughout the year on an energy system to the maximum
load on the system during that year. It is a measure of thermal
load annual profile.
 High load diversity: diversity factor is the ratio of the actual
maximum demand of a facility to the sum of the maximum
demands of the individual parts of a facility


Evaluation of the Factors for Feasibility of
DC in Residential Suburbs in Kuwait (RSK)
 High thermal load density:
 Harsh summer weather (DBT goes beyond 50 C).
 Residential houses in Kuwait are huge (400 m2 plot area with over 800 [up
to 1280] m2 built-up area). It is allowed to build 4 levels over a
basement.
 Residential suburbs in Kuwait are densely built-up (marginal green areas).
 High annual load factor:
 Very long cooling season (about 10 months)
 High internal heat sources:
 Over lighting even with no occupancy
 Circulating warm water throughout the building constructions
 Number of occupants (above 8)
 Style of life (e.g., cooking, use of appliances)
 High diversity factor:
 Diversity in building types in residential suburbs in Kuwait

Assessing DC for Residential Sector
in Kuwait
 A consortium was established to conduct a comprehensive
feasibility study for the National Housing Authority (NHA) and
MEW about the use of DC system for residential and inner city
application in Kuwait.
 The consortium was sponsored by Kharafi National (KN) and
Kazema Engineering Projects (KEP), and it consisted of the
following parties:
 Dar SSH International Consultants,
 Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR),
 Kuwait University (KU) and
 National Environmental Services Co. (NES).


Comprehensive Feasibility Study
 WaterCAD software was used in configuring DC piping
network.
 Hevacomp software was employed to estimate the cooling load
for the buildings and the overall load for the DC system.
 KISR reviewed DC design, and calculations of power and energy for
the conventional air-cooled and DC systems.
 KISR estimated the saving in the cost of electricity for DC
 KU verified thermal load profiles for the buildings and DC system.
 KU calculated the amount of heat gain by the distribution network
 KU analyzed piping stresses due to thermal contraction.
 Wataniya Environmental Service Co. (WES) performed the
environmental impact assessment (EIA).
 KU evaluated the EIA report.

Study Outcome
 The use of DC system for residential buildings in sectors A5
and B of Jaber Al-Ahmad City can reduce
 peak power demand by 46 % (26.9 MW), and
 annual electricity consumption by 44 % (80.3 GWh) compared
to the conventional air–cooled system.
 power station construction cost by 12 M KD
 power transmission cost by 1.5 M KD
 yearly carbon emissions by 50,000 metric ton (based on crude
oil primary fuel usage)


More Studies?
 While DC is proven, there are some advanced technologies that
can improve efficiency and operational benefits (e.g., integrating
DC with CHP).
 Kuwait-specific research could be conducted to:
 adopt the advanced technologies
 prevent inefficiencies in operation (e.g., poor dehumidification)
 Advanced integrated dynamic year-round simulation environment
can be used to better assess thermal performance of DC in RSK.
 Energy auditing for existing DC systems.
 Pilot DC project applied to a residential suburb or district.
 Many more.
 However,

Our Appeal

“Let’s take this chance!”
“Let’s start now”


Outline


The Current Status for DC in RSK
 There is an urgent need for DC in residential suburbs in
Kuwait
 DC feasibility is theoretically proven for residential
suburbs in Kuwait
 DC effectiveness is demonstrated in GCC countries
with conditions similar to that in Kuwait
 However, DC is not employed yet for residential suburbs in
Kuwait?

“What are the major obstacles ?”

Major Barriers
 Barriers related to non-governmental DC Investors for RSK:
 Starting DC for RSK is Risky
 Long payback period exceeding 10 years
 No political support
 There is no legislation for DC market (e.g., protect the investor)
 Overall billing and collection of several and different types of customers
 Requires access to municipal property
 Resistance from unitary AC (installation and maintenance) companies
 Barriers related to the government:
 Absence of political support
 There is no formal DC related strategy
 There is no policy supporting DC industry
 Barriers related to the community (hence, Kuwait Parliament):
 Fear from inefficiencies due to misuse by other linked users
 Lack of trust in charging and billing processes
 Ignorance of service quality control mechanisms
 Avoid monopoly in an essential service.

Outline


The Government Should Initiate the
DC Boost in RSK
 Initiate involvement of government bodies, especially: MEW, NHA,
and EPA
 Develop national vision and strategy for encouraging DC:
 Voluntary GHG mitigation target
 Cope with refrigerants phase-out commitments
 Employ DC related technology transfer via environmental treaties.
 UNFCCC has published an updated version of the handbook on
conducting technology needs assessment for climate change (November
2010)
 Utilize CDM for DC in RSK.
 Tabreed is closely working with Masdar to get CDM credits for projects
including the Dubai Metro
 Publish code of best practice for DC in RSK.
 Optimization of design and operation of DC system is a complicated task
due to the almost infinite number of decisions through the life-cycle of the
system

The Government Should Initiate the
DC Boost in RSK - Concluded
 Produce DC supportive policies:
 Incentives for DC users
 Reduced financing costs for DC investors
 Cheap rental for the DC plants room
 Introduction of off-peak electricity rates
 Legislate the DC market:
 Protect participants
 Control cost and quality
 Design and build DC piping network and infrastructure (free for the
community)
 Sponsor further application-oriented studies.
 There is an on-going research project (Annex IX 2008 - 2011) by
International Energy Agency DHC/CHP under the title “Fundamental
Benefits of District Heating and Cooling to Society and a Model to
Quantify and Evaluate the Benefits”

DC Services Supply Code - 2009
Energy Market Authority of Singapore

 The process by which the code can be modified is clarified.
 The supply and return temperature ranges are specified.
 Supply availability (99.5 % annually) and reliability are controlled .
 The DC service shall be measured by metering equipment with
accuracy no less than 3% at the normal flow of chilled water.
 The accuracy of the metering equipment shall be verified at first
installation and subsequently at intervals not exceeding 5 years by
an independent testing laboratory
 The Licensee shall invoice its customers at least once a month in
accordance to its published tariffs approved by the Authority.

Thank you Prof. Abdullatif Ben-Nakhi
abdnakhi@yahoo.com


Prospect of District Cooling for Kuwait Homes

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