The Ultimate Tower – Burj Dubai - Busch-Jaeger Elektro GmbH

Top view of roof (top left) and
floor plan (top right)
The consumption figures for a building the size of the
Burj Dubai are impressive: the thermal energy that has to
be extracted from the building at peak times each day
would be enough to melt 10,000 tons of ice. The cooling
water for the complex comes from two nearby cooling
plants, each of which could service the Burj Dubai alone
in case of emergency. The base of the building houses
heat exchangers and pumping stations to provide the
different user zones with cooling water: two each for the
residential and hotel floors, one for the office floors and a
further plant for cooling drinking water, whose temperature
can rise to 39 degrees centigrade in the summer.
Fresh air is drawn into the tower in the service zones,
then cooled by the exhaust air in a heat exchanger and
later blown into the individual floors mechanically.
Adjustable ABB drive units ensure that the ventilation
plants, exhaust ventilators, pumps, smoke removal ventilators
and fresh air blowers are working correctly
matched to each other and to the external climate. The
Burj Dubai is fully equipped with sprinklers, for which a
separate fire-fighting water system able to store 870
cubic metres is provided. It is intended to be enough to
prevent fire from spreading in the lower part of the tower
for 90 minutes and for 30 minutes in the upper section.
The skyscraper's electricity supply was set up to meet a
peak load of 36 MW. For purposes of comparison: the
world's largest solar power station, under construction
near Leipzig at the time of writing, has a peak output of
40 MW with a module area of 400,000 m2. To meet this
high demand, the Burj Dubai is one of the first buildings
in the Persian Gulf to have a 11 kV supply. The power is
not converted to a 230 volt operating voltage until it
reaches the building's own transformer. 50 gas-insulated
ABB switching units control the flow of current so precisely
that sections of the building's full system can
be isolated for maintenance purposes or to diagnose
faults. This equipment is particularly suitable for use in
high-rise buildings because it takes up so little space. As
well as this, five 11 kV emergency generators ensure that
power can be supplied in emergencies for safety systems,
selected lifts, pressure ventilation for the staircases, smokeremoval
ventilators, pumps and emergency lighting.
A monument to the age of oil
What will happen to the Burj Dubai when it is completed,
what will the world think about it in 50 or 100 years? History
teaches us that monuments always gain a hold on
the collective memory if they were well ahead of their
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