Dubai towers plan to slash energy consumption by a third

Measures to reduce energy consumption by a third could be introduced in 39 Dubai freehold residential towers early next year.

DUBAI // Measures to reduce energy consumption by a third could be introduced in 39 residential towers in Dubai early next year.

Novus Community Management, which oversees 52 buildings in the emirate, has commissioned Emrill Energy to carry out energy audits in 39 of its freehold buildings and propose measures to cut electricity consumption.

Over the next month, the results will be presented to owners’ associations in Palm Jumeirah, Dubai Marina, JLT and Downtown Dubai, said Alastair McCracken, the chief executive of Novus, who expects any recommendations to be welcomed.

“I would think installation will commence over the next three to six months,” Mr McCracken said. “By early next year, we would hope that all of these buildings will have some degree of energy demand reductions installed.”

The company estimates that the scheme will cut 410,000 tonnes of greenhouse emissions over 10 years if measures are taken in all 39 buildings. It says the scheme will also bring financial benefits for property owners.

Depending on the building and size of apartment, owners could expect reductions in their service fees of up to Dh10,000 a year because of the reduction in energy used, Mr McCracken said.

The measures would not require owners to pay any upfront costs as the savings would be used to fund the project, he said. EnergyX, a Hong Kong-based energy performance financing group, is funding the scheme.

“This programme enables building owners to reduce their energy cost and, obviously, therefore, reduce their consumption and most importantly reduce their carbon emissions with no risk and no upfront capital expenditure,” Mr McCracken said.

He said the availability of financing was key to the success of the scheme in jointly owned properties where, in many cases, there is no cash to invest in building improvements and owners are already complaining about high fees.

One reason for high service charges is that many buildings in freehold areas were built between 2003 and 2006, when energy efficiency was not factored in to construction considerations.

In the 39 buildings surveyed, utilities accounted for 15 to 62 per cent of service charges.

“Because of the timing of Dubai’s great construction boom, because of the time in which most of these buildings were built, and because of the period in which the designs were being put together for these buildings, they were very rarely designed for energy efficiency,” he said.

“And of course, now, these buildings are ageing.”

Ben Churchill, managing director of Emrill Energy, said many of the proposed measures would involve installing remote monitoring systems that collect information on how the buildings perform and that allow for building-management systems to be operated more efficiently.

“Building-management systems, even old ones, are actually fine, there is nothing wrong with them. It is generally just the way they have been commissioned,” he said.

“Traditionally, they have been used as glorified time clocks to just turn things on and off, whereas we can actually tune them to be far more dynamic.”

The measures will also involve installing high-efficiency air-conditioning chillers and other measures to reduce energy demand for air-conditioning, which typically accounts for up to 70 per cent of electricity consumed in buildings in Dubai.

“It is about good engineering across a wide range of things to create an outcome,” Mr Churchill said.

Novus estimates that were the measures introduced in all high-rise buildings in Dubai, 5.9 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions could be cut over 10 years.