Philippines and ENGIE Collaborate to Advance Global Carbon Emissions Reduction Efforts through Premier District Cooling System

The partnership between ENGIE, a French energy firm providing innovative solutions for diverse energy systems, and FDC has proved fruitful in making this modern city centre more exceptional through the installation of a District Cooling System, inaugurated on 21st September 2017.

The DCS installed in the Northgate Cyberzone in Alabang, an information technology park, is the Philippines’ first and ENGIE’s third district cooling facility in Asia Pacific, following ENGIE’s successful energy-saving footsteps of Malaysia’s Cyberjaya and New Zealand’s Christchurch District.

The great advantage of District Cooling (DC) systems is the collective energy savings this integrated planning yields. The CEO of ENGIE Services Asia Pacific, Pierre Cheyron, stated the DC system will initially provide efficient cooling services for 9 buildings in the Northgate Cyberzone, with the expectation that the system will cover 15 buildings, totaling 390,000 square meters, when investments in the zone are fully realized. The DCS plant has a cooling capacity of 42.2 megawatts and will produce efficient energy for 20 years while enhancing real-estate value, lowering capital investment, and supporting local economic development. The 9 equipped buildings have already seen a 35-40 percent power cost savings, which will only increase with economies of scale once all 15 buildings are in the system.

The president of the Philippine DCS Development Corp, the owning entity of the system hub, Joseph M. Yap stated, “We are proud to partner with [ENGIE], the world leader in district cooling systems... This project is the realization of our vision to produce a clean, sustainable and resource-efficient cooling system. It is also our way of reducing our carbon footprint.”

District Cooling projects are becoming more prominent in Asia Pacific and other regions as their energy saving and price stabilizing performance is increasingly recognized. UN Environment estimates cities can reduce their primary energy consumption for heating and cooling by up to 50 percent through transitioning to DCS. UN Environment’s District Energy in Cities Initiative, through collaborations with energy leaders like ENGIE, is working to enhance the region’s carbon cutting capacity further with DC systems through sparking investment and offering technical assistance for cities interested in strengthening and stabilizing their energy supply while reducing their carbon footprint.

With such great strides in energy efficiency ENGIE Services Asia Pacific is also looking to renewable energy generation in the Philippines to boost their impact in the fight against climate change.