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Reader Response #2

 According to the ENGIE’s webpage, “District heating and cooling systems” (2013) ENGIE aims to provide comfort to the public and conserve nature. ENGIE was awarded to be the “world’s largest independent provider of urban cooling networks”. Currently, they are managing 320 systems globally and can be seen in France, the USA and even in Malaysia. The webpage focuses on two systems, heating and cooling. The heating system focuses on warming up the building or city with the help of hot water and surcharge steam. It uses available resources for heat generation such as natural gas. However, the cooling network supplies cold water to the air conditioning system. In this system, distribution facilities and cold water production is needed for the services. Through the webpage, ENGIE's cooling systems help in making a city greener in terms of energy efficiency and reducing operating costs.

One of the main outcomes of using cooling systems is that the city is able to use less energy. It is perfect for Singapore since it is heavily dependent on the air condition system due to its population and tropical climate. Both ENGIE and Singapore will team up to create their first district cooling system in Punggol. According to ENGIE’s webpage (2013), the cooling system “consumes 35% less electricity” and “greater than 50% energy efficiency” when being compared to the common air conditioning system. The advantage of energy efficiency is that the overall greenhouse gas emission is decreasing which help in conserving nature.

The total energy has been reduced which lead to low operation cost. Based on a webpage from ENGIE SEA (2019), Malaysia saved up more than $200,000 just by improving its operation and in the Philippines, the clients save up 13% of their savings. Another example of lowering operation costs is in Singapore, there is another cooling system that is similar to ENGIE’s. That cooling system is able to save $4.3 million annually. Lowering operation cost is one of the factors in creating a green city as the cooling system uses less energy, water and electricity. Whereas countries or cities that do not have the cooling system and use the traditional air conditioning system suffer from a higher bill cost as it uses more of the resources.

However, the cost of installing the district cooling system is very expensive compared to installing chillers on each of the building’s roofs stated by ICAX. “ENGIE announced an $80 million investment in Singapore to develop its Centre” according to ENGIE SEA (2019). The underground district cooling system will be operated for 30 years. The district cooling system takes a long time to be built.

 Although district cooling systems may cost a huge sum of money and take a long time to be built, a lot of countries are still teaming up with ENGIE to have their own cooling system. District cooling systems may have their own disadvantages to it, the advantage of having it overweigh the disadvantage. Reducing the amount of greenhouse gas released into the air and using less energy, electricity and water contributes to a greener city.


Reference:

ENGIE SEA (2013). District cooling in South East Asia.
https://www.engie-sea.com/district-cooling


ENGIE (2019). District heating and cooling systems.
https://www.engie.com/en/businesses/district-heating-cooling-systems

Temasek (2019). District cooling to our Town Centres.
https://www.temasek.com.sg/en/news-and-views/news-room/news/2021/distributed-district-cooling-for-a-greener-singapore


ICAX (n.d). Disadvantage of district cooling.
https://www.icax.co.uk/District_Cooling.html

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