Comparison gas district cooling system with conventional system / Mohd Redzuan Abdul Halim

An airport is a major facility in which there are number of buildings which require electrical power, and either chilled water or heat for air-conditioning systems. Therefore, major savings to be made in the plant space required in each building by centralizing the plant for the production of heat or cool. As international airports become complicated, diversified, and magnified, the infrastructure should be reliable. Therefore, utilities to airports have to be of good quality with high reliability. The concept of District Cooling and Heating system has been employed for more than 20 years for airports in Europe. In United State, since air transportation is essential, District Cooling and Heating system is identified as one of the indispensable facility in the airport. Several of the airports utilizing natural gas for air conditioning are adopting absorption chillers. Recently, many international airports tend to change diversified energy sources rather than depending only on electricity. This is because of energy security as well as energy conservation. In Malaysia, Petronas with its subsidiary company Gas District Cooling (M) Sdn Bhd. is the pioneer for the Gas District Cooling System. A Gas District Cooling System is centralized energy plant generating chilled water for air-conditioning requirements of several buildings within a district. The construction of a centralized chilled water plant offers the potential for substantial efficiency gains through the generation of a secondary energy source from the waste heat from the primary process.