Speaking at the Sustainability Workshop during The Big 5, CEO of DC Pro Engineering George Berbari encouraged the GCC’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) industry to adopt new energy-efficient technologies.
He said: “The air-cooled systems continue to dominate 70% of the HVAC market without offering any significant power saving features.”
He raised concerns about power saving and refrigerant safety issues in VRF as well as in the design of fresh air systems. He recommended the upgrading of existing district cooling systems from partial to 100% usage of the thermal storage and treated sewage effluent (TSE). Berbari also stressed that district cooling has to embrace renewable energy such as solar PV (onsite or remote) and deep geothermal energy, and move into full tri-generation using bio fuels synchronised with renewables. This, according to Berbari, would save 75% primary energy as compared with the current electric district cooling.