District cooling
District cooling is suitable solution for offices, hotels, shopping centres and for residential buildings as well. However, district cooling is suitable for nearly all kind of densely built-up areas where cooling demand exist.
Helsingin Energia produces district cooling energy by using cold seawater, the heat content of purified waste water and surplus heat from the power plants.
The ecological efficiency of district cooling is supreme compared to building-specific cooling solutions. Helsingin Energia’s district cooling system’s energy efficiency is approximately five times better compared to building-specific cooling system. The emissions are dramatically lower as well.
Benefits for buildings
District cooling is outsourced cooling solution that provides a good indoor climate year around with really low environmental impact. District cooling is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week through the year. It is more reliable than building specific system.
District cooling replaces conventional building-specific chillers which use harmful HCFC compounds as cooling agents. Buildings cooled by district cooling do not use any cooling agents. District cooling will substantially reduce the electricity consumption of a building because building-specific chillers are electricity driven. Electricity consumption for cooling energy production will be reduced as much as 90 per cent.
Maintenance and other operational activities related to own production will disappear as soon as building is connected to district cooling system. Also the noise and mechanical vibration will be disappeared. The investment and operation costs are very competitive compared to conventional compressor chillers. All the harms related to own production is avoided by district cooling. Life cycle costs of district cooling are lower compared to building-specific cooling system.
