Overview
Dubai Festival City is 5.2 million sq. ft residential, business and entertainment development in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is home to the Dubai Festival City Mall which consists of over 400 retailers, 75 restaurants, cafés, and bistros, and parking for 6,500 cars. On average the mall is open for 16 hours a day year-round. Dubai Festival City also hosts one of Dubai’s largest District Cooling Plants, that produces and circulates chilled water to the city’s energy transfer stations, located at a number of retail outlets, a large shopping mall, a school, apartment blocks and a number of hotels.
Key Stats
US$2.7 Million
Total energy savings
Al Futtaim Eng
Clientk
30%
Cooling reduction
35%
Electrical savings
Challenge
As part of a cluster of project works at Dubai Festival City, CoolPlanet was approached to identify opportunities to improve the Mall, significantly reducing the energy consumption of the site. This included taking into consideration tenant occupancy of outlets, footfall, and seasonal variations. There were a lot of issues with airflow and balancing as well as old and uncalibrated sensors, all of which need to be replaced in order to achieve the project outcomes. Al-Futtaim Engineering entered an agreement with CoolPlanet to reduce the energy consumption of the Festival City Mall by 26%.
CoolPlanet was also tasked with reducing the energy consumption of the Festival City Tower and District Cooling Plant.
Solution
Despite being a modern facility, the centre was not operating at peak efficiency year-round. At the Festival City Mall, the existing secondary pumps were running in manual at a constant speed. Lighting included fluorescent lights and metal halide luminaires, both of which are less efficient than LEDs.
The project commenced with CoolPlanet installing its energy management platform – CoolPlanetOS. This helped to optimise the HVAC plant based on dynamic variables rather than static set points. The centre’s Air Handling Units, Fan Coil Units, and secondary chilled water pumps were all optimised and are now being dynamically controlled and continually optimised using CoolPlanetOS feedback.
CoolPlanet also executed a lighting retrofit programme, replacing all remaining fluorescent and metal halide luminaires with energy-efficient commercial LED lighting. Combined, these improvements reduced the energy consumption of the mall by more than 25%.
As a secondary project, CoolPlanet optimised the Festival City district cooling plant, which provided cooling to the mall as well as surrounding developments. The plant services over 22 buildings and has a 15km chilled water network. The system is operational 24/7.
As with the mall HVAC systems, CoolPlanet installed CoolPlanetOS, dynamically optimising the district cooling plant based on external influencers such as load and ambient temperature.
Works included operational control modifications, VSD controls works, field device data management and replacement works. The operation of the plant was optimised to match demand and ambient conditions with full automation.
Benefits
Savings of almost 10 million AED ($2.7 million) were achieved at Festival City Mall as a result of the optimisation measures. Savings of 980,945 AED were achieved following AHU and FCU operational optimisation, while optimisation of the secondary CHW pumps led to savings of 985,230 AED. The LED lighting retrofit saved 2,055,481 AED and a reduction in district cooling consumption saved 5,238,303 AED.
