Forget air-con, Singapore looks underground for a cooler future
The rapidly warming city state has among the highest per capita use of air conditioners in the Asia-Pacific
The 140-year-old concept known as district cooling uses less electricity than centralised air conditioners – a major advantage for a resource-starved tropical island-nation that has to import nearly all its energy and where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the global average.
The city state has laid pipes beneath at least eight neighbourhoods so far, with the Marina Bay network – the world’s largest underground system – having begun operations in 2006. More buildings will be linked up to that system, and separate facilities are being rolled out in other parts of the city by firms like Keppel EaaS.
“Cooling demand is rising with urbanisation, income growth, heat stress and commercial floor-area expansion” across Southeast Asia, said Lee Poh Seng, professor and head of mechanical engineering at the National University of Singapore.
Singapore had the potential to “demonstrate district cooling systems that credibly deliver energy, water, carbon, comfort, reliability and economic performance under hot and humid conditions”, he said.
The local market for the technology could double over the next decade from about 323,000 refrigeration tons today, according to Engie, which is among the world’s largest operators of such facilities. The firm runs two systems in Punggol district capable of cooling about 8,000 public housing units.