As the company launches its green buildings division, DC Pro Engineering CEO George Berbari talks to Alison Luke about the potential energy solutions that exist in the Middle East and how the battle for sustainable buildings can be won.
Already well established in the district cooling sector, consultancy DC Pro Engineering has now made an even more direct move into the sustainable construction market with the launch of its Green Buildings Division.
Intended to enable the firm to provide total building energy solutions to clients, DC Pro CEO George Berbari states that the combined resources of the two divisions can save up to 55% of a building's electrical energy needs.
One of the first contracts won by the new division was to produce a green building standard code and district cooling internal building code for Ras Al Khaimah-based Rakeen.
Intended for use on all future Rakeen projects, and to meet the firm's desire to prove the economic sense of green buildings, the code has shown possible savings in construction costs through the application of sustainable design.
"It is one of the most practical codes written on the subject anywhere in the world," assures Berbari, "we've shown that we can save 3% of construction costs by applying 80% of [the available] building measures," he adds.
"There is cost saving in green building and if someone is saying to a developer that you can save 3% construction costs and 30-40% of your energy and water - who can say no?," he asks.
In terms of energy, with the region's climate in mind, the most obvious place to begin seeking energy savings is in the air conditioning system.
And as a subject close to Berbari's heart, this is one of the main focuses of the firm's green buildings division.
"When it comes to the cooling system, which [in the Middle East] contributes around 70% of the building energy use, the world has a blurred idea of what to do and this is where we thought we can really contribute in terms of the simple, reliable solutions that have proven themselves in the field,|" explains Berbari.
By reducing the need for air conditioning the overall energy loads of a building can be dramatically reduced and this can be achieved in several ways, starting with the structure itself.
"The role of the MEP professional today is to work with the architect on the [building] envelope...by working hand-in-hand we can show that if [the architect] can use less glass that has a higher light transmission, not only will this reduce the cooling load but the artificial lighting needs during the day," explains Berbari.
"We are showing that they can use architectural aluminium cladding that is so close in colour to glass that you can barely differentiate them...aluminium cladding costs half that of glass, so you can achieve simultaneous construction cost reductions in addition to energy reductions in both the cooling system and artificial lighting," he adds.
The role of air conditioning
Once the energy savings from the structure are maximised, the next step for the firm is to look at the type of air conditioning system used.
As an expert in district cooling, Berbari stresses the benefits of such systems, but is quick to point out that improvements can also be made in such plants to increase sustainability.
Since its launch in 2007, DC Pro has designed in excess of 600,000TR of district cooling installations. It has a further one million TR lined up for the future, with continual process improvements planned.
"By implementing thermal storage and efficient system and series counterflow, plus TSE (treated sewage effluent) in our plants we reduce by 33% the energy use and cut a lot of water usage," Berbari explains.
He reports that the use of TSE for cooling tower make-up water is expected to be enforced by the end of 2008 under legislation from Dubai Municipality.
District cooling providers are also likely to be required to implement thermal storage on all plants.
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