On June 5, 2026, the Energy Evaluation Asia Pacific (EEAP) organized its 27th webinar, focusing on the topic of “Evaluating Resource Efficiency in Urban Energy Systems: Cooling Buildings and Data Centres”. The session featured presentations by:
- Christian Allen E. Jimenez, Research Assistant, Energy Studies Institute (ESI), National University of Singapore
- Lalitha Ravi, Research Associate, Energy Studies Institute (ESI), National University of Singapore
The webinar explored why cooling and data centres are becoming increasingly important for energy efficiency, carbon reduction, water security, and sustainable urban development across the Asia-Pacific region. The discussion showed that resource efficiency cannot be understood through energy savings alone. It also requires attention to thermal comfort, operational carbon, water use, governance, infrastructure design, and the wider trade-offs created by new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
The key focus of Christian’s presentation was the challenge of cooling in tropical urban buildings. He explained why cooling is essential in hot and humid climates, but also why conventional cooling approaches can be inefficient and carbon intensive. He introduced practical strategies for rethinking cooling, including occupant-centreed comfort, higher temperature setpoints, decoupling sensible and latent loads, district cooling systems, intelligent controls, passive design, and the need to align cooling strategies with grid decarbonization.
Lalitha Ravi’s presentation focused on the water implications of energy-efficient data centre design. She explained how the growth of AI and digital infrastructure is increasing data centre capacity, power density, heat loads, and cooling requirements. She emphasized that energy-efficient data centres are not automatically water-efficient, especially in hot and humid regions where evaporative cooling may reduce electricity use but increase water consumption. The presentation highlighted the need for better metrics, water-conscious design, reclaimed water use, cooling innovation, and governance frameworks that reflect local water stress and climate risks.
Overall, the webinar provided practical insights into how resource efficiency in urban energy systems should be evaluated as a systems challenge. It showed that credible evaluation needs to look beyond single indicators and consider multiple outcomes, including energy savings, emissions, comfort, affordability, water use, resilience, and policy relevance.
Presentations:
Summary Notes
Download the Summary notes here.
Recording:
Access the recording here.