This study aims to address this issue by evaluating the potential environmental advantages and relevant policy challenges of implementing large-scale integrated cooling systems for districts in dense urban city areas in the country. We show that these systems can be an important first step in advancing urban sustainability, especially when embedded within the notion of smart/flexible cities (Kamarulzaman et al., 2023). This allows decision making on new systems to be based on optimal designs through a novel combination of computational fluid dynamics modelling, urban energy simulation, and energy-economic modelling of a wider range of demand-side management measures that minimize the life cycle costs and financial risk of district cooling (Singaravelloo & Salih, 2022). We aim to provide strategic policy recommendations and roadmap to steer the industry for innovation and transformation towards mix development settings and cooling industry in Malaysia. The main goal is to provide the next generation of smart, scalable, compact, sustainable and efficient mixed-use urban climate-responsible developments from the ground up
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