Land reclamation has been a long-term government policy of expanding the Hong Kong urban areas along the waterfront. These flat pieces of land are ideal sites for the application of district-cooling technology. At a central refrigeration plant, chilled water is generated and supplied to a district to support the air-conditioning systems in buildings. Because of the large-scale production, together with the convenience of bringing in seawater for condenser cooling, the chiller plant is higher in efficiency than those in individual buildings. The customers can also use the building space of their own more effectively. In this paper, the technical requirements and the cooling scheme options in the context of the subtropical urban environment are discussed. A government-commissioned feasibility study of a proposed district-cooling site in Hong Kong, with an estimated 200 MW cooling-plant capacity is then described. The proposed system and the methodology in predicting the thermal demand and the energy consumptions are introduced. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.