Seeking New Energy Efficiency Solutions for Buildings

ADNOC is seeking innovative solutions to increase the energy efficiency of the buildings within Ruwais City. The two identified areas of focus are:

a)    Reduce building energy consumption and improve related Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing (MEP) operations and maintenance performance and costs                       
            
b)    Optimize the operations and maintenance performance and costs of the District Cooling Plant (DCP) and related building MEP systems.

A) Electrical Energy Efficiency

The solution should result in the reduction of building energy consumption rates. The scope of the solutions are encouraged to consider the following strategies: improving the technical operations and maintenance of the buildings, fostering energy efficient user behavior, and harnessing data feedback loops and smart appliances to reduce energy consumption rates.

The proposed solution may include both hardware and software. Should the solution include functionalities for sense making of the energy used by different electrical appliances within the building, these hardware deployments must not or at most have very minimal modification to the existing infrastructure. This is particularly important for retrofits to existing buildings. This is both to encourage acceptance by the tenants and to manage upfront investment costs. Occupant behavior based solutions are acceptable, but should not be the sole solution as their effectiveness to date has been variable in practice.

B) District Cooling Efficiency

Solutions should be focused on improving the cost and energy efficiency of the existing District Cooling Plant. For instance, solutions can focus on automating and/or centralizing some of the facility operations, reduce maintenance and commissioning operations, and increase energy efficiency. Solutions should also be able to be incorporated into future DCP plants. Solutions can also consider the related equipment within the buildings serviced by the DCP. The proposed solution may include both hardware and software that interface with related equipment such as the temperature sensor, fan coil units, etc.. Should the solution include modification of the existing building cooling system, these hardware deployments must not or at most have very minimal modification. The solution should also be able to provide a data feedback loop to the utilities operators to optimize the operation of energy generation and district cooling plant, so as to achieve overall energy optimization at the district/city level.

Solutions should strive to minimize payback period and maximize ROI.

ADNOC is open to considering proposals that address the requirements individually. However, proposals that addresses both requirements (A&B) will be assessed more favorably.

Upon successful test-bedding, ADNOC will be keen to roll out this solution for city-wide implementation.

The solutions must not cause inconvenience to the occupants nor disrupt the current living space and the infrastructure that is already in place. The eventual deployment of the solution is targeted at both greenfield and/or brownfield projects managed by ADNOC. As such, any proposed solution should try to be applicable across both new and existing buildings, of variable program types (e.g., residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, civil).

A three phase approach will be adopted for this challenge.

•    Phase 1: Selection of proposals
•    Phase 2: Prototype + Testbed solution on an existing building(s)
•    Phase 3: Implement small-scale trial (at neighborhood level) before ADNOC decides on scaling-up 
                     the solution