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Reader Response #3

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. According to the webpage, ENGIE's cooling systems help make a district greener in terms of energy efficiency and reducing operating costs.

One of the main outcomes of using cooling systems is that the district is able to use less energy. It is perfect for Singapore since it is heavily dependent on the air condition system to provide comfort to everyone due to its population and tropical weather. 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. One of the advantages of energy efficiency is that the overall greenhouse gas emission is decreasing which help in conserving nature. Conserving nature helps in making the district a greener place.

The total energy has been reduced which lead to a lower operating cost. According to the webpage from ENGIE SEA (2019), Malaysia saved up more than $200,000 just by improving its cooling system 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. However, countries or cities that do not have district cooling systems and use the common 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 buildings’ roofs as stated by ICAX (n.d). “ENGIE announced an $80 million investment in Singapore to develop its Centre” for a 30 years contract according to ENGIE SEA (2019). At the same time installing the district cooling system might take a long time. The pipelines for the district cooling systems can be found underground.  Since there are a lot of pipes underground the worker need to pay close attention to the pipes to prevent them from damaging other properties.

 Although district cooling systems may cost a huge sum of money and take a longer time to be installed, a lot of countries and cities 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. There are a lot of benefits to the client and the country or city if they installed the cooling system. For example, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas released into the air and using less energy, electricity and water contributes too. Those advantages help in conserving nature, therefore, making the district a greener place.

 

 

Reference list

ENGIE South East Asia (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

 

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


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

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