While climate change continues to intensify, bringing increasingly extreme temperatures especially in urban contexts, the demand for air conditioning systems grows throughout Europe. But in the face of very high energy consumption and an increasingly worrying environmental impact, some cities have started to invest in a collective and sustainable solution: the urban cooling network. This system, already active in countries like France, is also starting to make its way in Italy, with the first pilot projects started in Milan and Turin.
What is an urban cooling network?
The urban cooling network, also known as centralized air conditioningit is an infrastructure that allows you to produce and distribute fresh air to several buildings through a single centralized network. Instead of equipping each apartment, office or commercial building with an autonomous air conditioning, all properties are connected to a cold production plant, via isolated underground pipes.
The concept is similar to that of district heating, already widely used in winter, but applied to summer cooling. The cooled water is transported through the system and passed into heat exchangers, which transfer the freshness to the internal environments. Once the heat is absorbed by the buildings, the water is brought back to the plant to be cooled again, giving life to a continuous closed cycle, efficient and low impact.
How does it work?
The operation of the urban cooling network is based on natural sources or on recovery energies, also called “fatal energies”. The latter are sources of energy that would otherwise be wasted: an example is the cold water water taken for safety or drainage reasons, as happens in the underground parking lots of Lyon, where the Dalkia company uses water pumped at 10 ° C to cool entire neighborhoods. A similar system is also being tested in Milan, in the areas of Porta Nuova and CityLife, where underground aquifers are exploited.
In Paris, however, the Senna water is used as a natural cooling source. In Italy, cities like Turin are evaluating the use of the water of the Po or of geothermal sources to create similar networks. In some cases, cooling is obtained through industrial compressors, but always integrated by systems that maximize energy recovery and minimize dispersions.
After cooled the buildings, the water – now warmer – returns to the plant, where it is treated and reinserted again in the net, minimizing waste and environmental impact.
All the advantages of the urban cooling network
The environmental, economic and practical benefits of this solution are manifold. Here are the main ones:
From an economic point of view, centralized maintenance reduces long -term costs for users, who must not worry about managing individual systems.
But there are also limits
Despite the numerous advantages, the urban cooling network also has some critical issues. The main one is represented by the high initial investments necessary for its realization. Excavations, laying of pipes, production plants: everything requires complex infrastructures and advanced urban planning. For this reason, at the moment, this technology is suitable almost exclusively for large cities or metropolitan areas.
Another limit concerns the systemic risk: in case of failure or malfunction of the control unit, the entire network can freeze, leaving entire neighborhoods without cooling. In addition, compared to traditional air conditioners, users have less chance of precisely adjusting the temperature in each room, which could be uncomfortable for some specific needs.
The potential of this technology for Italy is very high. Not only to counteract the increasingly frequent heat waves, but also to achieve the environmental objectives provided for by the PNRR (national recovery and resilience plan) and the European Green Deal. With the right political, regulatory and financial support, the urban cooling network could become, in the coming years, a pillar of urban climatic adaptation, improving the quality of life in inhabited centers and contributing to the country’s energy transition.
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