Itron Collaborates with Qatar Cool to Enhance Thermal Energy Operations in the Middle East

LIBERTY LAKE, Wash. — Jan. 10, 2023 — Itron, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI), which is innovating the way utilities and cities manage energy and water, announced today that it is collaborating with Qatar District Cooling Company (Qatar Cool), the leading district cooling company in Qatar, in the Arabian Peninsula, to enhance its thermal energy operations. Qatar Cool has upgraded its existing Itron data collection and meter data management (MDM) solution, EMMSYS MDM, to help the utility enhance efficiency in its cooling system and increase customer satisfaction. The contract also includes deployment of 25,000 Itron thermal energy meters for cooling application and will be deployed in collaboration with Itron’s channel partner QIFEM (Qatar International First for Electromechanical Company).

Itron’s EMMSYS MDM solution is used for day-to-day network management and will help the utility increase customer awareness and satisfaction with access to detailed consumption reports and optional alerts for high cooling usage. The solution’s newly designed web interface will not only enable Qatar Cool field technicians to remotely access the data collection system, but its unified standard interface is user-friendly and easy to operate.

Within the upgraded EMMSYS MDM solution, the utility can perform detailed data analysis, build out work order management modules, create diagram and map overviews, enhance reporting and management and easily connect with its billing system.

QIFEM and Itron’s work together dates back to 2009 when the two companies collaborated on a project that helped transform The Pearl-Qatar into a smart project with a complete end-to-end smart metering solution.

“Together with our channel partner QIFEM, we have provided on-site technical support for Qatar Cool's smart metering deployment for the past 13 years. As Qatar Cool enters the next phase of its cooling journey, we look forward to working together to help the utility enhance its system and streamline operations,” said Harald Joellenbeck, Itron’s vice president of heat and allocation at Itron.

“Over the course of our 13-year relationship and collaboration with Itron, we have implemented many technology advancements that have yielded benefits for our customers,” said Yasser Al Jaidah, chief executive officer at Qatar Cool. “Now, with this latest upgrade, we can build upon the system and data to enhance our operations further, ensuring district cooling is at its optimum efficiency, which in turn will further reduce our carbon footprint. We look forward to our continued partnership with Itron and QIFEM.”

“With our partner Itron, we have deployed the cooling smart meter system in Pearl Qatar with great success,” said Munther Koborsi, general manager at QIFEM. “Together, we are meeting Qatar Cool's objective to deploy the latest meter data management and thermal energy meters to improve operational efficiency. At QIFEM, we are thrilled to be working together to provide local technical support to Qatar Cool.”

About Qatar Cool

Qatar Cool is the leading district cooling company in Qatar, with The United Development Company (UDC) as the majority shareholder. Since its inception in 2003, Qatar Cool has aimed for operational excellence in every aspect of its business. Over the past 19 years, the company has developed solid technical and operational experience and has refined its approach on both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) fronts.

Qatar Cool owns and operates four cooling plants spanning across two major districts in Qatar. Three of the cooling plants are situated in the West Bay district, with a combined cooling capacity of 92,500 Tons of Refrigeration.

The fourth cooling plant is located on The Pearl- Qatar, a 41 million square feet man-made island. The Pearl Qatar plant is the largest in the world housing a cooling capacity of 130,000 Tons of Refrigeration. Qatar Cool’s fifth cooling plant in the Pearl Qatar is under construction and will serve the Gewan Island development. The cooling plant has a capacity of 18,000 Tons of Refrigeration.

Over 12 years, Qatar Cool has achieved a saving of over 2.9 billion KWH, that’s enough energy to power over 12 thousand houses in Qatar for one year. The savings in energy when converted to CO2 is over 1.6 million tons of emissions reduced. To put this into perspective that is the same as planting over 20 million mature trees, these trees would fit into almost 57 thousand football stadiums, or to look at it another way, it’s comparable to removing over 315 thousand cars off our roads.