Solar Or district cooling -customers life time cost perspe
Cont'd from Solar or District Cooling-1
In Part 1 ; we have discussed the cost difference between the District Cooling Plant and the Conventional air conditioners systems.
Here we take 2 different perspectives :
- The Life Time total charges that the Customers/End Users pays to the District Cooling Service Providers ( DCSPs) ; and how large , if invested in solar Parks , would the capacity be .
- The Life Time cost of the :
- Water consumed in the District Cooling
- The heat gain into the Pipe Network
It has been published that the heat gain leads to an approximately 9% loss of the cooling capacity being generated at the District Cooling Plant (DCP)
These two elements usually are overlooked while their cost is quite substantial
Life Time Charges that the DC Customer/End Users may pay
The table at the left summarizes the basic costs , leaving other costs for further detailed studies :
- Capacity Charges
- Consumption Charges
- Low Delta T Charges which is assumed here to be 20% of the Consumption Charges , even though , much higher percentage have been reported .
The size of the DCP is the same as in Section 1 ( 50,000 Refrigeration Tons), heavy usage ( 400 hours), 25 years ).
The total charges for the 50,000 RT in its 25 years term , assuming the currently prevailing DCSPs tariffs is around 4.72 billions AED, approx. 1.3 billion USD;
While it is understood that this amount is not available in cash upfront ; nor it is a method of any economical assessment , due to financial factors (loan term , interest ,...) it is mentioned here just to explore the possibilities of great opportunities that the estimated cash flow can provide , and we leave this issue to specialists ( economist , planners ,..) to assess the alternative business investment scenarios.
Assuming that the total power in the GCC is split between Air conditioners (around 50% , and other facilities running on electricity ( lighting ,lifts, pumps,...) around 50% ; this means that the expected cash flow (under the assumption of being fixed tariffs for 25 years ) can finance the construction of few solar parks , each is powering the whole community ( air conditioning load plus the other load needed for lighting and other facilities ). Assuming that each community , being served with a 50,000 TR is of a size around 10 million of sq. ft
The District Cooling (DC) business started with the goal of being energy saving option against the conventional air conditioners. The DC when flourished more than 2 decades ago , started by challenging the conventional air conditioning system due to their high energy demands causing excessive carbon emissions, increasing the size of required power stations , increasing numbers and sizes of electric substations ,...
Therefore , under such low cost which is still expected to continue the trend the solar parks seems have a brighter future .
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Heat Gain in the Pipe Network and Water Cost.. enough to procure a single solar park to feed a sing
The cost of heat gain to the pipe network is usually overlooked in many DC cost comparison !
Here , we evaluate its financial opportunity coupled with the cost of the water . Both of these two elements are not concerning issues with the conventional air-conditions systems , therefore , assessment of them will help to make a fair comparison between both of the systems .
Heat Gain : It has been published that the DC pipe network causes a loss of approximately 9% of the generated cooling
Extra Water Cost :
DC uses water cooling process to cool the used refrigerant through the cooling towers being installed on the roof top of the DCP building .
It has been reported that the water consumption ranges between 1.5-2.0 Imp. Gallon per ton.hr .
During the term of 25 years , the 50,000 TR DCP expected to consume 7.5-10 billions of imperial gallons ;and around 400 GW.hrs of electricity lost to the soil .
Using the prevailing electricity and water tariff , the cost of these two factors can procure a solar park ( sized 1.5 times the necessary power ) that can feed the whole DCP of 50,000 TR for its life time.
Again , by implementing the financial terms and its associated cost of capital , the size of the solar park might be reduced. The point here is just to explore the amount and opportunities which are overlooked in general .
