Energy, cost, and environmental analysis of individuals and district cooling for a new residential city

In hot climates, the active cooling system of buildings is the main cause of high demand for electrical energy. A district cooling (DC), water-cooled chiller system based, proved the success of reducing such demand. However, this advantage of DC system was not investigated for low rise residential buildings. In this study, a comparison of the energy consumption, life-cycle-cost, and environmental impact of the DC, rooftop unit (RTU), and variable refrigerant flow (VRF) is performed. DC shows a reduced peak demand by around 50 % and 49 %, in addition to a less annual energy consumption by 55 % and 18.4 % compared to RTU and VRF systems, respectively. The life-cycle-cost analysis (LCC), which conducted in a new design city Almutlaa in Kuwait as a case study, indicated that the DC system is the most cost-effective system over a life cycle of 24 years. The LCC of the three systems (RTU, VRF, and DC) for the new city is 22.7, 20.8, and 17.4 billion dollars, respectively. This is means that DC saves 5.28 and 3.44 billion dollars compared to RTU and VRF, respectively. Moreover, the amount of CO2 emission avoided using DC compared to RTU and VRF is 35,000 and 11,000 metric tons, respectively.