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A distributed district cooling network will be installed in seven buildings in Tampines Central, making it Singapore's first town centre with district cooling.

In a joint news release by SP Group and Temasek on Apr. 18, it was announced that the cooling network will completed and operational in the first half of 2025.

Use existing chiller plants

The initiative is a partnership between SP Group, Temasek, Tampines Group Representation Constituency (GRC) and the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE).

The distributed district cooling network utilises existing in-building chiller plants instead of building a new centralised cooling plant.

The interconnected cooling solution will be retrofitted in the following buildings in the town centre: Century Square, CPF Tampines Building, Income At Tampines Junction, OCBC Tampines Centre 2, Our Tampines Hub, Tampines Mall and Tampines 1.

Within the network, several injection nodes were selected based on their existing excess cooling capacity and superior energy efficiency factor.

The nodes will be connected through a piping network, so the rest of the buildings can obtain chilled water for their cooling needs and do away with the need for their own chiller plants completely.

Managing director of sustainable solutions at SP Group S. Harsha said that the cooling network is expected to cost between S$40 and 60 million, reported The Straits Times.

Will save emissions, energy and costs

Designed by SP Group, the novel green solution will also save energy, lower carbon emissions and save costs for the building owners.

The cooling network will reduce 1,359 tonnes of carbon emissions annually, which is equivalent to removing 1,236 cars from our roads.

It will also achieve energy savings of more than 2.8 million kWh every year, which can power more than 905 three-room HDB households for a year.

In addition, the network will provide building owners with combined life-cycle economic benefits of up to S$50.8 million over 30 years.

"The energy and cost savings, as well as reduction in carbon emissions enjoyed by building owners prove that with the right solutions, doing good and doing well are not mutually exclusive and will address our challenge posed by climate change.” said Minister for Social and Family Development and Adviser to Tampines Grassroots Organisations Masagos Zulkifli who witnessed the signing ceremony on Apr. 18.

The network will also reduce the current unutilised cooling capacity by up to 42 per cent and free up more floor area that can be converted to commercial and lifestyle spaces.

Top image by roots.sg.