Tabreed India to focus on cooling systems for commercial property

Tabreed India, a unit of Abu Dhabi’s National Central Cooling Company, plans to focus on creating partnerships with pan-India real estate companies and corporations to set up district cooling systems after facing hurdles in participating in government projects.

“Our focus predominantly is commercial, it’s not presidential. It’s all commercial real estate as we are seeing the most interest from that segment,” Sudheer Perla, country manager for Tabreed, told Moneycontrol.

Tabreed is eyeing airports and nearby aero cities for its products, he said.

Green buildings, which companies and real estate developers are already looking at, are also an opportunity for district cooling companies including Tabreed India.

District cooling is a system widely used overseas where chilled water produced in a central plant is supplied to buildings through a network of insulated pipes.

Perla said in most public sector projects in India, there are many players involved in designing, planning, and executing a project and it becomes difficult to coordinate and get approvals.

“Most public sector projects in India are funded by one party, planned and designed by another, and executed by a third party. So it becomes hard for us to coordinate with so many departments and ministries,” Perla said.

He said the coordination between ministries and stakeholders prevented Tabreed India from participating in tenders to provide cooling systems for metro projects and the Central Vista project.

The new parliament is being built by Tata Project; three out of 10 buildings that will form the Common Central Secretariat (CCS) are being built by Larsen & Toubro; and the vice-president’s enclave is being developed by Jharkhand-based Kamladityya Construction.

First few deals

Perla added that Tabreed India had entered into a 30-year concession with the Andhra Pradesh government in 2019 to build, own, operate and transfer India's first district cooling system in the state's proposed new capital Amaravati, but the project is on hold.

However, Tabreed India is confident about growth and is finalising its first deal.

“We are in the process of finalising a deal to set up a district cooling system of 6,000 to 10,000 refrigeration tonne capacity. We hope to finalise the deal in the next few weeks,” Perla said.

Tabreed India is also in advanced negotiations to set up district cooling systems in four to five other projects in Hyderabad, Pune, and Bengaluru.

“By July, we'll have at least four or five fairly interesting, large enough partnerships in India,” Perla said.

Perla said that to promote the growth of district cooling systems in India, the government can address some bottlenecks. He said the government should consider lowering the goods and services tax rate on district cooling systems to make them more affordable.

He added that the system of power tariff slabs in residential properties lowers the savings district cooling systems can provide to individuals.

District cooling systems also make use of natural sources of water such as lakes, rivers, and seawater to exchange heat, enabling the provision of “free cooling,” substantially decreasing power consumption.

The main advantage of district cooling is that it leverages economies of scale by aggregating demand, eliminating the need for independent AC units for buildings. This reduces capex requirements and the need to build for peak cooling capacity.