# Abu Dhabi Marina Square District Cooling



## WhitneyJ

Hi, everyone. This is my first post, but I have am a longtime reader of these forums and I have tried searching in advance before asking this question. 

I currently live in Marina Square, Reem Island. Although it wasn't made clear (despite my questions) prior to moving in, I see that I am responsible for district cooling charges, as per the following table from 360 property management company.

Chilled Water
(a) Refundable Security Deposit of AED 1,500 per meter
(b) Annual Capacity Charge of AED 790 per RT
(c) Monthly Consumption Charge of AED 0.21 per RT
(d) Monthly Metering Charge of AED 30 per meter

I've lived here for some time, but haven't yet received a bill. I would like to know if there is any way to estimate my RT of consumption. I have a 2 bedroom flat and rarely use the AC (never during the day, night only June - September). Based on that, I am hoping that my district cooling charges will be low. I have read horror stories about bills of AED 2000 per month, but those were in other parts of town. Could any one living in Marina Square share their experience?

thanks in advance.


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## AlexDhabi

Hello there, I lived on Reem Island at Sun Tower for 3 years and in the peak of summer in August with a two bedroomed flat and my AC on Auto setting 24*7 I used about 500 Ton-hours per month (varied a lot, but in winter hardly anything). and at 0.21 per Ton-hour I am assuming this the same unit of measure that you have called "per RT". So if you budget for 100 AED absolute maximum consumption per month for your consumption you should not have any nasty surprises (assuming your insulation levels are similar).


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## WhitneyJ

Thanks, Alex - RT is a refrigeration ton and I have no idea how to convert it into ton-hours, unfortunately (and I have done a LOT of searching online), hence my post to find some benchmarks based on fairly light A/C usage.

Based on the guidelines taken from the property management company's (360) website, I am on the hook for AED 790.21 per refrigeration ton (items B and C), plus the AED 30 meter charge. Thus if one ton-hour and one refrigeration-ton were the same thing, I would actually owe nearly AED 400K for one month of use! 

I don't understand why district cooling is so tricky!!


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## Stevesolar

Hi,
The annual capacity charge of 790.21 per RT is based on how much capacity your apartment has - a small apartment might have a 3RT system (so you would pay 3 x 790.21 per year capacity charge) - a bigger apartment will have bigger capacity fan coil units - so a bigger fixed capacity charge.
This capacity charge is fixed - even if the AC is switched off and not used all year.
The 0.21 per RT is measured on usage like an electricity meter. The meter measures how much cooling you extract from the chilled water that is supplied to your apartment (this goes through the fan coil unit and is converted to cool air and blown with a fan out of the vents).
The water comes into your apartment at 4 degrees centigrade and is warmed up through a coil heat exchanger - that swaps cold water for cold air. The warmed up water then flows back to the district cooling system.
You actually also need to pay for the electricity that the fan coil units use to blow the cool air (although these don't use too much power).
Cheers
Steve


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## rsinner

I live in RAK Tower in a 2 bed - paid about 200 for the full year in 2013. Since they have changed the billing, my full year bill for the year 2014 was closer to 600.

We do not use the AC a lot. I don't think I have seen a capacity charge element yet in the bill, but who knows - they may decide that they forgot to bill me and will include that when I am moving out.


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## WhitneyJ

In case anyone ever does a search for district cooling charges in the future, I thought that I would share mine, now that I have them from the property management office.

Since the start of the year, I have accumulated just over AED 100 in district cooling charges - this is for a 2BR flat with minimal A/C usage. I know that it will start to go up now, but for 6 months, that doesn't seem bad at all.

Thanks to everyone who answered!


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## Ttoyag

Hi guys,

Was it stipulated in your contract that you would have a cooling bill?


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