A New York Times feature article titled How To Cool Down a City is emphasizing innovative urban planning in Singapore to combat rising temperatures.
According to the article, there are some areas of the metropolis that are about six degrees hotter due to a high volume of buildings and a lack of greenery. Concrete and asphalt absorbs heat and releases it into the air at night, trapping heat within the densely populated areas.
One particular Singaporean district, often dubbed “air conditioner alley,” is a stark example of how numerous independently made, uncoordinated choices can collectively lead to substantial heat increase. Here, hundreds of individual air conditioning units expel hot air from various residences and commercial establishments, all converging onto a narrow street.
Singapore is steadily implementing innovative urban planning strategies to combat this heat. According to Brian Stone Jr., director of the Urban Climate Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, considering trees as a part of city infrastructure is necessary. In integrating more foliage– such as greenery in public spaces, rooftops, and facades – a natural cooling effect takes place. Large-scale implementation of this could prevent widespread heat absorption throughout the city, as greenery provides shade and emits water vapour.
The article adds that another method to help this process is district cooling. Rather than installing individual air conditioning units for each building, a network of insulated pipes filled with cycling chilled water could reduce heat waste and provide efficient cooling. Singapore’s centrally planned Marina Bay already does this.
A closed-loop system, as championed by Eavor, could also be a viable tool for expanding district cooling as an Eavor-Loop™ is perfectly suitable for high density populations like Singapore, as it has a very low land footprint compared to other renewable energy sources. The integration of this game-changing technology could provide an additional avenue for achieving efficient and sustainable cooling in Singapore, as well as other densely populated hot countries.
