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The District Cooling Services Bill, which seeks to provide for the imposition of charges for the use of district cooling services, was gazetted today (September 26).
The District Cooling System (DCS) is an energy-efficient air-conditioning system and also one of the major infrastructure facilities in support of the sustainable and environmentally friendly development at the Kai Tak Development (KTD).
A spokesman for the Environment Bureau said, "To promote energy efficiency and conservation, and with the support of the Legislative Council (LegCo), the Government is constructing the DCS, which is the first of its kind, at the KTD with a planned total of about 1.73 million square metres of non-domestic air-conditioned gross floor area."
The DCS consumes 35 per cent and 20 per cent less electricity as compared with traditional air-cooled air-conditioning systems and individual water-cooled air-conditioning systems using cooling towers respectively.
"Due to better energy efficiency, the maximum annual saving in electricity consumption upon completion of the entire DCS project is estimated to be 85 million kilowatt-hours, with a corresponding reduction of 59 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per annum," the spokesman said.
The proposed tariff set out in the Bill seeks to achieve full cost recovery of the DCS over its project life in 30 years. It is lower than the cost of using individual water-cooled air-conditioning systems using cooling towers, which is one of the most energy-efficient air-conditioning systems available in the international market. This is in line with the expectation that long-term energy savings would translate into a reduction in cooling costs.
The Bill will be introduced into LegCo for first and second readings on October 8.
The DCS project cost for all phases is estimated to be $4,945.5 million in money-of-the-day (MOD) prices. Funding approval from LegCo has been secured for Phases I, II and IIIA of the project at an approved project estimate of $3,145.9 million in MOD prices. The funding need for the remaining works will be considered subject to the progress and development programme of the KTD.
Ends/Friday, September 26, 2014
Issued at HKT 14:30
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