12 minute read
OP-ED
LEADERSHIP & INNOVATION
Alastair Mulligan joined Tabreed, the largest district cooling service provider in the GCC, 12 years ago. Today he’s the managing director of Tabreed Energy Services and he talks with Construction Business News ME about leadership and innovation – two of the most important foundations of any successful company. by ALASTAIR MULLIGAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF TABREED ENERGY SERVICES
hen Tabreed
Wwas established in 1998, it really was heading into uncharted territory as the first business of its kind anywhere in the UAE. The undisputed leader in its field, the company has expanded almost beyond recognition since taking those initial steps and commissioning its first district cooling plant in Sweihan, Abu Dhabi.
Now we own and operate 86 plants across the GCC, providing essential cooling to many of the region’s most famous, iconic and popular landmarks. If you’ve recently visited the Burj Khalifa, The Dubai Mall, the Dubai Opera or travelled on the Dubai Metro, you will have been kept cool by Tabreed. The same goes for Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Yas Mall, Ferrari World, Warner Bros. World, Louvre Abu Dhabi and many more incredible developments that have captured the hearts and minds of people all around the world.
As with the UAE in general, Tabreed’s incredible progress would not have been possible without having inspirational leadership and innovation as central pillars for the company. We have been fortunate to have benefitted from impeccable leadership by our board, CEOs and management team that have steered us in the right direction, resulting in Tabreed itself becoming a beacon of quality and an industry leader like few others. Predictably, since Tabreed was established, rival companies have come along, so we have never been able to stand still. We seize upon opportunities to expand our portfolio and, while growing our presence in the UAE, have expanded into new countries – initially Bahrain, before commencing operations in Oman and Saudi Arabia, and recently we opened an office in India.
As Tabreed has grown, so too have its services. I head up its wholly owned subsidiary, Tabreed Energy Services, established in January 2020 to consolidate the group’s service businesses to provide customers with an integrated set of consultancy, operations and maintenance services, that will help them optimise the energy efficiency of their buildings and developments.
We enable building owners, both government and private sector, to access Tabreed’s deep expertise in optimising energy efficiency and in particular cooling systems, which are the largest driver of energy use in this region. Energy consumption is obviously a contentious subject all around the world, the accepted wisdom being ‘the lower, the better’ and this brings about a unique set of challenges in this part of the world. The UAE is one of the world’s most difficult countries to cool, experiencing not only high ambient temperatures but high levels of humidity, too. Innovation, then, has been essential for Tabreed to do what it does effectively, efficiently and reliably, while maintaining commercial viability with a laser-like focus on environmental sustainability. In this respect, district cooling as a concept can be considered innovative, as it has meant that property developers can use the services of a centralised cooling plant, obtaining the benefits achieved through economies of scale which include reduced redundancy and power requirements within the development itself that traditional air conditioning schemes demand.
Tabreed’s expertise in energy efficiency is unrivalled, bringing huge cost benefits to property owners and developers, as well as to the environment, because reduced energy consumption equals reduced CO2 emissions. In fact, during 2020, Tabreed’s operations saved over 2.26 billion kilowatt/hours across the GCC – enough to power 128,443 homes every year – and prevented the release of more than 1.35 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, equivalent to removing approximately 300,000 vehicles from the road. These savings are the result of Tabreed’s strategic collaborations with developers and the ways in which we have adapted the designs of cooling plants to this region’s specific characteristics. Each plant is designed according to customer needs, both present and potential, and the environment it is to be cited within. For instance, some of our plants supply coastal locations and, where we’ve been able, we’ve designed them to use sea water for cooling without negatively impacting marine ecosystems. To meet remote area cooling requirements, where grid power
was not readily available, we have also integrated efficient electricity production into our plants to facilitate our customers’ requirements, along with the development of water polishing plants to utilise recycled water. We have completely changed the commercial structure of cooling and energy services, which has brought enormous benefits, too. For instance, independent studies have proved that Tabreed reduces energy consumption by between 19 and 23% by giving customers the ability to sub-meter the cooling services in their buildings – another homegrown innovation. As a resilient, agile organisation, we analyse each and every step of every single operation with the goal of maximising efficiency.
Through Tabreed Energy Services, we have formalised additional service offerings to our customers – lowering energy bills, increasing cooling comfort and allowing the outsourcing of HVAC operations, maintenance, and upgrade investments. Some of these service offerings include plate heat exchanger cleaning to optimise heat transfer and local ‘cooling as a service’ where Tabreed can own, operate and maintain traditional cooling facilities allowing customers to monetise or replace their cooling systems. This provides many of the benefits of the outsourced cooling model that district cooling provides but for typically smaller facilities located on or within a building owner’s premises.
Any company that professes to be innovative must invest in R&D and, as you might expect, Tabreed has some really inspiring projects underway. We recently announced the launch of four pilot projects to improve operational efficiency while enhancing district cooling plant life and reliability. ‘Future of Cooling’ will introduce new concepts and technologies in design and control philosophy to each district cooling plant, resulting in material improvements in performance, longer life and lower plant lifecycle costs. ‘Carbon NanoTube’ (CNT) is another, with the potential to drastically enhance the performance and life span of plant and equipment while reducing plant and energy transfer station (ETS) footprints using CNT material, which has outstanding properties in terms of heat transfer. Then there’s ‘Wet Bulb Forecasting’, designed to drastically enhance demand side management, more accurately forecasting customer demand for the next 24 hours to allow for a more efficient operation by optimising production of cooling. The fourth involves redesigning the district cooling plant’s condenser circuit and cooling tower, which is one of the critical components in the plant and has a significant impact on the plant’s performance.
As a respected leader and innovator, Tabreed is acknowledged to play a vital role in assisting the UAE’s and the region’s ambitious environmental targets, particularly regarding carbon neutrality. We are, and will remain, heavily involved in the drive for a sustainable future and that’s good news for everyone, everywhere.
WORKING
IN ENCLOSED SPACES
HOW MB CRUSHER’S EQUIPMENT CAN LEND A HAND ON CONSTRUCTION SITES IN ENCLOSED SPACES
It’s well-known how that working in enclosed spaces multiples problems: it means facing challenges every day such as lack of access routes, little room to maneuver, managing incoming and outgoing trucks, managing materials, and protecting workers. As a result of the challenges, time and the costs of labor increase, which puts companies in a difficult position. However, there are available solutions: knowing what they are means opening your eyes to a new way of managing tasks with excellent results and turning expenses into a revenue source.
HARD TO ACCESS AREAS AND LIMITED MANEUVERING ROOM IS NO LONGER A PROBLEM The most common challenges on construction sites in enclosed environments are hard to access and have limited maneuvering spaces. In quarries, tunnels, mines, and construction sites inside factories or warehouses, managing incoming and outgoing materials are complex. MB Crusher’s attachments have revolutionized the approach: they enter the tightest places and manage materials directly on site. The results are obvious: reduced waste, zero transportation costs, and increasing the yard’s profitability.
MB Crusher’s entire range is designed to work even where space is limited because each product attaches to any brand excavator, even mini-excavators, turning them into a powerful crusher. MB Crusher’s drum cutters make it even easier to work in enclosed spaces. Making it the most effective solution to process only the material they needed with precision. Companies equipped with MB Crusher’s units can independently recover and process waste materials, reduce costs, and become more competitive.
EXTRACTING MATERIALS WITHOUT EXPLOSIVES Another critical point of working in enclosed spaces such as quarries and mines is managing the explosives and the workers’ safety. In these situations, MB Crusher’s units have changed methods and how profitable companies are.
For example, in a mine in Albania, extracting iron-nickel happened using explosives, which comes with the costs of the explosives and the safety measures. None of the operators were aware of an equally effective alternative method. By inserting MB Crusher’s units, they abandoned using explosives, and extraction happens with the MB-R700 drum cutter installed on an 18,000 pound Bobcat 442. A drastic change for the company and also the entire sector.
The same attachment has been used in many quarries and mines, solving the problems surrounding using explosives for extraction.
Furthermore, MB Crusher’s drum cutters are the most effective answer to mill only the necessary material without generating waste material that they need to dispose of. They also avoid creating dangerous vibrations if they work underneath roads, excavations located in cities, or inside industrial warehouses close to other buildings.
In Mexico, as a recent example, for them to build a drainage tunnel underneath a busy road, they couldn’t use a hammer since it would have created too many vibrations. However, an MB Crusher MB-R500 drum cutter installed on a mini-excavator solved the job without creating vibrations or cracks in the walls – they only processed the material they needed.
IMMEDIATE OPERATIONAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS The units from MB Crusher’s range present a turning point for organizations working in enclosed spaces to become faster and economically advantageous.
Let’s look at an example of a job in South Tyrol in Italy, where an industrial warehouse’s floor had to be dismantled and redone. By inserting a BF120.4 crusher bucket on the Doosan excavator present on site, all of the inert material was crushed on-site and used to create the new layer for the new flooring.
Easy to install and operate, MB Crusher’s attachments transform any material into a resource, even enclosed environments or on construction sites that are hard to access. With their products, MB Crusher has revolutionized the process and turned construction sites into autonomous crushing centers that yield excellent performance and increase profitability.
REAL ESTATE BOOST
After record breaking monthon-month transactions and quarterly results for the Dubai property market, we took a look at the entire first six months of 2021. As expected, when comparing H1 2021 to H2 2020, the increase in numbers in the residential sector was across the board.
High sales transaction volumes from January to June 2021 accounted for a great first half of 2021 with a total of 27,373 transactions worth AED 61.97 billion (USD 16.89 billion). When comparing this to H2 2020, the volume of transactions increased by 40.2 percent and the value of transactions increased by 55.87 percent. If we take a deeper dive into the data, in H1 2021 the Dubai real estate market had 17,434 secondary/ready transactions worth AED 46.88 billion and 9,939 off-plan transactions worth AED 15.09 billion. When compared to H2 2020, secondary/ready transactions increased by 44 percent and the value of secondary/ ready transactions increased by 56.28 percent. Off-plan transactions showed a slightly lesser increase when compared to the previous half year with an increase of 34.02 percent for volume of transactions and an increase of 54.61 percent in value of transactions.
Average transaction values for both secondary/ready and off-plan properties have also increased, showing an increase “54 PERCENT MORE APARTMENTS WERE SOLD IN H1 2021 COMPARED TO H2 2020 AND 49 PERCENT MORE VILLA/TOWNHOUSES. THE INCREASE WAS IN BOTH SEGMENTS, AND THE GROWTH OF THE ENTIRE RESIDENTIAL MARKET BY APPROXIMATELY 50 PERCENT.”
in the average price per transaction. The average transaction price for secondary/ ready properties increased from AED 2.48 million in H2 2020 to AED 2.69 million in H1 2021. The average transaction price for off-plan properties increased from AED 1.32 million in H2 2020 to AED 1.52 million in H1 2021. This shows an increase of 8.53 percent for secondary/ready properties and an increase of 15.36 percent for off-plan properties.
“54 percent more apartments were sold in H1 2021 compared to H2 2020 and 49 percent more villa/townhouses. The increase was in both segments, and the growth of the entire residential market by approximately 50 percent.” according to Lynnette A Sacchetto, Director of Research & Data.
According to proprietary Property Finder demand data, the top areas of transactions for villas/townhouses in H1 2021 were Mohammed bin Rashid City, Dubai Hills Estate, Dubai Land, Nadd al Sheba and the Green Community. As for apartments for the same period, the top areas of sales were Business Bay, Jumeirah Village Circle, Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Lakes Towers and Downtown Dubai.
Property Finder demand data also shows that sea view, upgraded, furnished, payment plan and pool were the top keywords used by people searching for properties across Dubai in H1 2021. “This clearly shows a desire for quality amenities as people now care more about how they live and spend their money,” adds Sacchetto.
