Dubai Supreme Energy Council rules out increases in chiller costs

A member of Dubai’s Supreme Energy Council has ruled out plans to allow increases in chiller tariffs, Emirates 24|7 can reveal.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Council of Energy, said: “There will be no increase in chiller tariff. It’s based on consumption. Unless there are other issues, we don’t know. There are meters and based on consumption they are being charged.”

In January, this website had reported that Nakheel had hiked chiller charges by almost 150 per cent in the Gardens with the company stating that the charges were approved by the Supreme Council of Energy.

Nakheel, in a statement, had said: “The cooling rate we were using before was set as long ago as 2002 and the cost of electrical power and water have risen substantially and we find that in the current economic climate we are no longer able to continue to subsidise the rates as we have been doing until November 2011.”

A senior official of Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) clarified to this website that issues related to chiller tariffs were handled by Dewa and not by the agency.

In February, Mohammed Khalifa bin Hammad, Senior Director, Rera, said utility and chiller charges had led to an increase in service charges.

“We have tried our level best to reduce maintenance fees, but all our efforts are hampered by the rising cost of utilities and chiller charges. We have taken up the issue with the respective agencies,” bin Hammad had said.

In Discovery Gardens, service charges in certain buildings were Dh14 per square feet of which maintenance fee made less than Dh2 per square feet.

Utility and chiller cost was over 60 per cent of the total service charge.

A resident of Royal Oceanic in Dubai Marina also complained that about 50 per cent of the cost of service charge was related to chiller.


In order to reduce the burden on property owners, Rera is also planning to ask interim owner associations (IOAs) to install separate chiller meters in their buildings so tenants will have to pay the chiller consumption charges.

“We are planning to ask IOAs to install separate chiller meters so the tenant pays directly to the service provider for what they consume.

Property owners will have to pay the charges for the common area,” bin Hammad said.

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