Background

The end-user is one of the leading District Cooling Service Providers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The DCP Operator has a proven track record in supplying cooling services with thousands of satisfied customers located all over Dubai.

The combinatorial effect of digitalization, connectivity and artificial Intelligence is massively disrupting the industrial and commercial sectors. As a utility, DCP Operator has Big Data flowing in from 14 plants that can be utilized massively to reshape the way DCP Operator does business using advanced Energy Management information System to conduct data cleansing, visualization, automated reporting, and essential data analytics This fits perfectly well within their ambitious energy transition strategic roadmap that requires accurate data capture, reporting, digitalization of operations and 3rd party M&V audit of savings.

As part of their strategic plan, DCP Operator aims to further improve the efficiency of their district cooling plants through technical retrofit works and digitalization of their plants’ operational processes and Energy Management, as well as remote monitoring and control of all the DCPs Energy Consumption through arkEMIS.

Problems to be solved

• Ensure independence of ESP (ESCO) from a raw data capture perspective with ease of customization
• Integrate data from the full portfolio regardless of the SCADA / PLC or BMS under one platform (one stop shop)
• Verify data quality and validate communication with field sensors
• Enable ISO50001 certification and automated M&V reporting per IPMVP standards
• Provide user-specific interface (UX/UI) with smooth dashboard and reporting experience
• Monitor performance of all process equipment and field sensors with AI-capability, and provide data analytics essential to investigate conservation measures
• Integrate into PLC to avoid any data manipulation and store data indefinitely

Solution

arkEMIS’ digitalization consultants have connected all District Cooling plants to the Command-and-Control Center (CCC), which has allowed to centralize all asset data across the portfolio in one place. A non-intrusive software was developed and installed on a local PC with access to the data points via OPC UA server in the CCC to integrate smoothly with other plants where OPC UA is running.

arkEMIS is integrated to the OPC UA Server via arkEMIS RESTful API, processed and made available on the dashboard for Client’s use.

Integrated System

Results

• One unified platform for all plants, ESCO and OEM-independent
• Live Energy dashboard and data capture and visualization available anytime, anywhere, on any device with customized user experience
• Independent and automated measurement and verifications of energy savings based on IPMVP standards
• State-of-the-art data analytics functionalities (including efficient operations simulations) to enable ISO50001
• Right information to the right people at the right time
• Energy Performance Indicators to track plant performance
• Energy consumption and plant efficiency comparison of all plants
• Automated notifications, alarm triggers, anomalies and drift detection
• Amazon Web Services hosting with state-of-the-art cyber security