Saudi electricity regulator issues district cooling service guidelines

The Saudi Electricity Regulatory Authority (SERA) has issued guidelines for the provision of district cooling services, aiming to regulate the relationship between service providers and beneficiaries. The guidelines clarify the roles and obligations of both parties, define their duties, protect their rights, enhance service quality and reliability, and promote transparency.

District cooling services involve producing cooling energy at central plants and distributing it via chilled water through insulated pipelines to buildings and facilities for use in air conditioning and cooling indoor spaces.

The guidelines set out detailed provisions and regulations, including requirements for service connection and activation, providing applicants with both connection and consumption agreements, and verifying the availability of sufficient cooling capacity before accepting new connection requests to ensure existing consumers and system efficiency are not affected.

The document also covers the installation of meters, rules for calculating actual cooling energy consumption, clear billing procedures, and processes for disconnecting, restoring, or suspending service. Service providers are required to offer appropriate channels for handling complaints and to safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of consumer data.

The authority has invited all stakeholders in the district cooling sector to review the guidelines, which are available on its official website.