Piping for district cooling is a hot market

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Piping networks for central cooling plants is a major growth business worldwide, said Preben Tolstrup, CEO of Danish manufacturer Logstor in the monthly newsletter of the Danish Board for District Heating.

This is due to the increasing dominance of district cooling over individual air-conditioning units, usually mounted on the outside walls of each room, apartment or building section. “Old-fashioned air conditioning of this kind usually results in unsightly blemishes on any building, and on the urban landscape in general,” said Tolstrup.

“They can make even attractive, well-designed buildings ugly. They also use large amounts of electricity to produce a relatively limited cooling effect, as well as being noisy and occupying valuable space in commercial premises.”

In contrast, modern district cooling represents a paradigm shift in ensuring comfortable indoor environments all year around. “Providing the required cooling effect from a high-efficiency central facility makes a huge difference to production and distribution infrastructure costs, operating costs, performance and reliability.

“Centralised supply via pipe systems in which there is hardly any loss of thermal energy makes it possible to achieve substantial economies of scale, as well as to benefit from advanced technologies designed from the ground up to be environmentally responsible,” said Tolstrup.

“District cooling paves the way for technology breakthroughs that are ideal for use as the backbone in twenty-first century urban-development projects, as well as important new thinking about how to deal with the practical effects of climate change.”

According to figures from Euroheat & Power, centralised district cooling set-ups are more than five times as energy-efficient as traditional single-unit air-conditioning. This means a potentially huge global market for cooling of buildings in urban areas. However, companies like Logstor need to look away from their traditional European focus to fast-growing markets like the Middle East, added Tolstrup.

Logstor, the world’s largest manufacturer of pre-insulated pipes, recently entered into a JV with Empower to launch a manufacturing facility in the Jebel Ali Industrial Area called ELIPS (Empower-Logstor Insulated Pipes Systems).

“Empower decided to enter into this JV with an eye on securing the supply chain of pre-insulated pipes used in district cooling networks, which constitutes 20% to 25% of the total capital investment. The facility will ensure timely delivery and installation of pipe networks that will have a major impact on Empower’s project timelines,” said Empower CEO Ahmad Bin Shafar.

ELIPS will ensure high quality of insulation and casing of pipes, enhancing efficiency and maintenance costs of district cooling services. It will also ensure price control by improving supply chain and eliminating artificial price fluctuations created by various players due to the demand-supply gap.

“This factory represents an opportunity for Empower to achieve backwards integration. It will also consolidate our status as a leading regional player in pipeline systems by meet the industry's primary requirement for pre-insulated pipes,” said Bin Shafar.