Climespace In Paris Helps to Improve 50% Energy Efficiency
Paris has a large cooling network that operates under a concession model from the city of Paris, called Climespace. This network is the first (since 1991) and the largest district cooling network in Europe and operates in the center of Paris. There are two other smaller district cooling networks in north east and south east of the city.
Climespace’s district cooling network is over 71 km long and runs 60% of the network through the city’s sewage system to minimize costs of network development and impact on the city. When roads have to be dug up in order to expand the network, in Paris it is the responsibility of the city authorities to coordinate with other utilities to ensure that disruptive roadworks can occur at the same time.
The district cooling network makes use of the city’s free cooling’ through three production sites that take cold water from the Seine River to provide cool. These sites use this cold water to pre-cool water before it enters electric chillers. These three production sites as the base supply of the network, meeting 75% of the network’s cooling demand over a year enabling the district cooling network to use 35% less electricity than normal centralized cooling in buildings. The other production sites on the network help meet peak periods of cool demand and are highly efficient electric chillers with cooling towers. Compared to an equivalent pool of stand-alone cooling units, Climespace has following benefits:
There are also some other cities around world adopted district cooling system to cut energy consumption. Toronto, Canada uses water from Lake Ontario to cool downtown buildings. The system is also integrated with Toronto’s drinking water supply. The Dubai Metro System inaugurated 2009 the first in the world district cooling to lower temperatures in stations and trains.
Reference:
UNEP <DISTRICT ENERGY IN CITIES PARIS CASE STUDY>
http://www.climespace.fr/en/the-leader-in-sustainable-cooling-in-paris/
