Dubai District Cooling Network

Cooling a City by Pipe, Not by Unit

Dubai is one of the hottest major cities on Earth, and cooling its towers and malls accounts for a huge share of its electricity. District cooling replaces thousands of small, inefficient building air-conditioners with central chilled-water plants that pipe cold water to whole districts — a far more efficient approach.

A Global Leader

Operators such as Empower and Tabreed run some of the largest district cooling networks in the world from Dubai, serving Business Bay, JLT, the World Trade Centre, and major malls. The chilled water is often produced at night using off-peak power and stored for daytime peak demand.

A Desert Survival Technology

District cooling is one of the key technologies making large-scale desert cities viable — the invisible infrastructure that lets Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha keep growing despite temperatures that would otherwise make them uninhabitable.