Global and local companies are competing for growing investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia's district cooling market, supported by massive projects under execution, as cooling consumes about 50% of total electricity used in buildings and rises to 70% during peak periods, according to statements on the sidelines of the International District Cooling Conference in Jeddah.
Moussa Nabil, head of air conditioning sales at LG Saudi Arabia, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the company has implemented more than 25 large projects in the Kingdom since 2008 with investments exceeding $100 million, noting that its latest project is Riyadh Avenue north of the capital. The company supplied a district cooling plant for the project with a total capacity of 28,000 tons of refrigeration, valued at about SAR 30 million.
Nabil added that among the company's most prominent projects in the Kingdom is King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, where it provided cooling systems with a capacity of 15,000 tons of refrigeration, in addition to implementing a cooling plant for a power generation station in the Eastern Region with a capacity of 92,000 tons of refrigeration, the largest for the company in Saudi Arabia.
In the same context, Stephane Lemoine, CEO of Dalkia Middle East, said the total value of projects the company has secured in Saudi Arabia reached about SAR 350 million, distributed across energy efficiency, solar energy, and district cooling sectors. Dalkia, a subsidiary of France's EDF Group, won projects worth SAR 100 million in energy efficiency, SAR 150 million in solar energy, and SAR 100 million in district cooling.
Saudi Arabia is one of the largest district cooling markets in the region, with projects under execution valued at about $2.32 billion, including the district cooling plant at Diriyah Gate with a capacity of 72,500 tons of refrigeration and a 25-year contract worth $186.4 million, and the NEOM district cooling project with a capacity of up to 200,000 tons of refrigeration. The Middle East district cooling market is expected to reach about $15 billion by 2027, driven by urban expansion, massive infrastructure investments, and government efforts to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.