Published on: 28/01/2009
Publication: Gulf Today
Country: United Arab Emirates

Investment in Green Buildings and district cooling schemes are made with a long – term vision for future to minimize environmental impact and to build sustainability, writes Moushumi Das Chaud.

DC PRO Engineering is an electro mechanical consultancy firm founded in the year 2006. The UAE best company specializes in District Energy services through district cooling engineering and Green Buildings MEP services in the Middle East.

In April 2008, DC PRO family announced the launch of its green buildings division with specific focus on addressing sustainability and energy conservation practices through efficient electro-mechanical designing and services.

A senior official of the company told The Gulf Today, “In total more than 1,000,000 ton of District Cooling Schemes and 2,000,000m2 of Green Buildings MEP design are undertaken by DC PRO so far. The company has undertaken turnkey district cooling projects in UAE, Saudi and Bahrain. Major projects of the company include Dubai Investment Park, Dubai Festival City, Dubai Motor City, Danet Abu Dhabi and The Workers’ Village, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah Investment Centre.”

Apart from this, a high-profile project of the Green Buildings division was the production of a green building standard and district cooling internal building code for Ras Al Khaimah – based Rakeen.

Outside UAE, a few of the key projects on hand include designing of the Sea Water district cooling systems for Emaar’s Bay La Sun in Saudi Arabia, West Bay District cooling scheme in Doha and the engineering design of the wave in OMAN.

The chief executive officer of DC PRO

George Berbari, said: “With green sustainable buildings we are saving on energy consumption, saving on natural resources, saving on operational and maintenance costs besides reducing emissions. Hence they make greater economical and environmental sense.

A green building that taking its cooling and heating from a green District Energy plant can reduce energy consumption and emissions by 50 percent. Another strong case fir residential and commercial green buildings is their role in providing better and healthier living conditions and increasing the occupant or work-force productivity.”

He also said: “In 2009, our growth strategy is to focus on opening two branches in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and expand to Jordan and near East. Within GCC, outside UAE, Saudi Arabia will continue to be our key market, though we have a few projects in Qatar, Bahrain & Muscat. In terms of growth, new contracts won and launch of new green business division, last year was a significant one for us. And we look forward to continuing the growth momentum this year as well.”

Regarding the recession and company’s future, he said: “What is more concern is the depletion of our natural resources. The other pre-dominant issues are global warming and increase in carbon footprint.

Investment in Green Buildings and district cooling schemes are made with a long-term vision for the future to minimize environmental impact and to build sustainability.

These Investments, the benefits of which will outweigh the costs have become necessities, not options. And this has been realized alike by the property developers, architects, occupants. Hence go green will continue to be the top of the agenda, whether it is economic slowdown or otherwise. In other words, the green buildings industry is recession-proof.

In fact, green building measures are potential cost-saving factors and hence they will be more in demand in times of a financial slow down.

For instance, through our design, we have proved that 80 percent of green building measures reduce construction costs by around 3 percent and energy and water demand by 30 percent to 40 percent.

The CEO also added: “Being part of the Global economy, obviously the UAE economy is also being impacted by the economic crisis. But our projects are not just confined to UAE. As I mentioned earlier, we have projects in progress in other GCC countries. Also, we are diversifying into other markets outside.”

The whole world is experiencing the impact of global warming and there are many energy efficient features which make a building green such as optimized heating ventilation and lighting systems, solar panels, district cooling systems.

And the trend to incorporate such smart and cost-effective green features is becoming popular globally.

For instance, if district cooling is designed and used properly integrating thermal storage and the use of treated sewage effluent (TSE) to make up water for cooling towers, and if chilled water plants are well also designed and operated, power demand can be reduced by 50 percent to 55 percent and energy consumption by 40 percent to 45 percent.

To certify green buildings, the United States Green Building Council has developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard to benchmark a building’s approach to sustainability against five key criteria: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

George Berbari also explained how to combat global warming and climate control change and said: “The concept of green buildings and sustainable development has already caught the attention of construction and real industry in UAE. Many promoters show keen interest in adopting sustainable building options for their projects and are in favour of the green buildings rating system. The three different emirates of UAE Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have come out with green building guidelines.

With such conscious efforts to conserve energy and resources, UAE is the right path to combat global warming and climate control change.”

DC PRO produced the green building standard and district cooling internal building code for Ras Al Khaimah – based Rakeen, which has become a law.

Our green building division is currently designing jointly with Poerre Dammous & Partners, the MEP for the Business Boulevard on Shaikh Zayed Road in Dubai which constitutes of 700,000 m2 build up area compromises a common podium, three residential towers, hotel, furnished apartment building and three office towers. So far, we have produced 15 million square feet of green building designs.

To conclude he said: “The latest initiative from our side is the launch of an education department to provide training and prepare for certification for prospect LEED approved engineers. With this, we intend to address the plug the gap in the market supply of skilled professionals in the market in the field of green buildings designing.

There is a lot of awareness about the Green Buildings and their benefits.
But what is important is the enforcement of codes and standards by the regulatory authorities.
Only with strict composing laws in place, can the wide –scale implementation of green building measures be achieved.