An anchor component of Cyberjaya’s smart city ambitions

An anchor component of Cyberjaya’s smart city ambitions

  • Megajana plays a vital role in the “smart” and “green” aspect of Cyberjaya
  • Currently your masterplan  to build out next plant with Cyberjaya as part of development

An anchor component of Cyberjaya’s smart city ambitions

This sits tucked away, simply off a visitors lights and most motorists will not notice this when driving with the street it is on, in Cyberjaya. And that suits Dr Mohd Hafiz Ibrahim, just fine. The general supervisor of Pendinginan Megajana Sdn Bhd great team are tasked with ensuring corporate customers in Cyberjaya keep their all critical central a/c systems running easily and at maximum performance and low cost.

It has been carrying out a stellr job so far. Megajana has had no interruptions in its 23 years of operations. The main reason? It has 15 chillers in its facility, meaning it has multiple backups.

A part of Malaysia’s first, on the inside planned, smart town, Cyberjaya, Megajana plays a key role in the “smart” and “green” aspect of Cyberjaya, since the sole service provider within the city, adopting a District Cooling System (DCS) design which launched within Nov 1999.

Explaining the particular model, Dr Hafiz says it is simply no different than an utility support such as water, energy, fixed broadband and mobile where infrastructure is shared in the generation and distribution of the service.

With its subterranean pipe network amassing to 12km duration in Cyberjaya, “we offer a plug and play intelligent utility solution to building owners” says Dr Hafiz who strains that a DCS features as the backbone of the green and intelligent city.

In terms of how it works, the system relies on a centralised cooling plant which supplies cooling energy in order to connected buildings inside its network via underground Chilled Drinking water (CHW) pipelines. Devices at the customer aspect, called Energy Move Station (ETS) transfers the cooling energy to the building by way of a Heat Exchanger. The warm heat soaked up from the building will then be returned to the District Cooling Flower (DCP) via its closed-loop system. The particular CHW supply heat to customers can be between 6. five to 7. five degrees Celcius plus return temperature is in between 13. five to 14. 5 degrees Celcius.

A full grown model in developed nations, DCS produced its entry directly into Malaysia in the early 1990s and has turn out to be progressively entrenched since the most cost-efficient way to deliver centralized air-conditioning in high density developments such as university campuses, government buildings, company districts, industrial region, commercial and retail buildings, hotels and residential towers, airports, etc . The usual minimal requirement for a connection application is 20, 000 sq ft of cooling area that is equivalent to 100 RT (Refrigerant Tonne).

From a preliminary five customers in 1999, Megajana has forty five customers today including universities, government organizations, a shopping mall and data centres.

An anchor component of Cyberjaya’s smart city ambitions

Future development prospects look appealing. “We are currently commencing a masterplan study to build out following plant at Cyberjaya as part of our development. This is in anticipation of future demand especially for hyperscale Information Centres, ” stated Dr Hafiz.

The benefits of region cooling are especially appealing to data centers as it will slow up the energy footprint of the data centre given that most of the equipment required to cool the facility has, in a sense, been outsourced to Megajana. With 35% of the energy produced going towards cooling purposes, this in turn shall instantly reduce energy intake by 35%. As well as if a data center prefers to use its own system, “we can provide them redundancy plus security, ” stated Dr Hafiz.

According to Doctor Hafiz, there is another key benefit too,   “with Megajana data centres can reduce water usage by 90%. ”

Can be, while the green and smart aspect of relying on a district cooling are clear, the cost benefits are strong as well. “For office buildings, we can reduce electricity costs by 60%, ” said Dr Hafiz. What makes this achievable is the facility’s usage of thermal energy storage space (TES).

Consider this akin to an electrical bank that Megajana charges at night when energy costs are usually low. With more than 2 . 5 million the common cold packs in the form of indented cubes, Megajana may store 10 hours worth of energy to become distributed to customers during the day.

“There are already plans to retrofit the thermal energy storage space to a newer and higher efficiency system, ” said Dr Hafiz who states the DCS players are advocating that District Cooling end up being recognised as one of the essential drivers to support energy efficiency.

49% owned by French conglomerate ENGIE (which acquired the particular stake in 2012) and 51% by Cyberview, Megajana, despite having a strong marketplace position in Cyberjaya, has ambitions further than the smart city.

Urban immigration is one key cause. “We see metropolitan migration to be a main driver for district cooling.   Whilst currently about 77% of the population hails from cities, this will leap close to 90% by 2050. ”

That means a lot more energy is needed within cities with structures requiring 65% of the energy for chilling purposes while the cities will use up 33% of their energy regarding cooling which includes community spaces buildings, halls, residential etc .  
“You can easily see the critical role DCS will have to enjoy in this scenario, ” Dr Hafiz mentioned.

Beyond this mega craze of urban immigration, there is also the looming shadow of environment change, specifically where it relates to a warming world.

Here, Dr Hafiz cites an interactive article from 2018 in the Ny Times that allows one to chart the future temperature of their cities. The chilling news to get Klang Valley residents is that by 2050, the capital will experience 288 days a year with temperatures above 32 degree celcius, thereby needing air-conditioning. But even before that, “the demand regarding cooling will dual by 2030, ” Dr Hafiz warns.

Using the experience and worth that it has brought to many customers and to the quality of life in Cyberjaya, Dr Hafiz is insistent that district cooling, has to turn out to be part of early planning cities in Malaysia, besides playing a vital role to help area achieve its Co2 Neutral goal by 2050.