The district cooling sector in the UAE is forecast to see 18% growth over the next five years, according to Emicool, one of the three big players in the sector within the country.
District cooling means the centralized production and distribution of cooling energy. Chilled water is delivered via an underground insulated pipeline to office, industrial and residential buildings to cool the indoor air of the buildings within a district.The company expects over 40% of the overall global demand for district cooling to come from the Middle East and Africa by 2019.
With new projects seeing a steady transition from traditional air-conditioning to district cooling, companies such as Emirates District Cooling (Emicool), Empower and Tabreed are seen playing a bigger role. Emicool says it is set to boost its market share from the current 12% to 20% due to growing demand. It is also targeting expansion of its plant capacity in Dubai Investment Park from 115,000 tones of refrigeration (TR) to 250,000 TR going forward.
Emicool plans to further increase its capacity to 500,000 TR by 2020. 
In UAE and regionally, there is a huge commitment to the cause of sustainability, and no wonder district cooling industry has a profound role to play in eco-friendly infrastructure of districts, cities and countries
The benefits of district cooling are evident and master planners are increasingly incorporating district cooling systems in future projects. As a company, Emicool is eyeing strong growth as residential projects and demand picks up in the region.