District Cooling

District cooling involves centralizing the production of chilled water in support of comfort cooling for a “campus” of buildings.  The chilled water is produced at a “central plant” and distributed to the “end-use” buildings via underground pipes. In a model very similar to power generation, the “chilled water” is produced centrally and distributed to the point of end-use.  

 

Centrally producing chilled water can produce significant economies of scale and enhance efficiency performance by aggregating the cooling load for a campus or grouping of buildings.  Load aggregation may frequently incorporate the use of thermal energy storage (TES), which helps reduce power generation cost and emissions by load shifting to night and evening rates as well as possibly using more carbon friendly base load power generation resources.

As a business concept, district cooling has been in existence for many years, but is now experiencing resurgence as power prices continue to escalate and as markets place more emphasis on energy conservation and carbon emission reductions.