Stakeholder workshop on District Cooling Feasibility in Maldives began this morning at the Ministry. District Cooling is a very energy efficient technology to provide air conditioning and cooling for buildings in entire communities, cities and developments and it is used in large scale throughout the world since more than 20 years.

By utilization of cold seawater and centralized cooling production major savings of electricity and refrigerants are made to the benefit of the climate.Avoiding massive amounts of electricity for air conditioning also results in less imported oil and facilitates the transition to renewable electricity production.

For developers, building owners and tenants district cooling provides for sustainable and competitive cooling/air conditioning, reduced investments, simplicity, reliability, architectural freedom and better use of available space.

Maldives is implementing its HCFC Phase-out Management Plan (HPMP) with funding from the Multilateral Fund for implementation of the Montreal Protocol. The plan targets complete elimination of HCFC use by 2020. HCFCs are widely used as refrigerants in Maldives in servicing of various refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, with significant majority use in air conditioners.

Devcco, a leading firm in developing District Cooling and District Energy worldwide with its office in Stockholm, Sweden has been appointed by the United Nations Development Programme (“UNDP”) in Maldives to perform a feasibility study for District Cooling in Male’ and Hulhumale’.

Main findings of the feasibility study is that Hulhumale’ and the planned developments provide excellent conditions for successful implementation of sustainable and competitive District Cooling.