HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with HE Abdulla Nasser Lootah, Director General of the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority (FCSA), to promote strategic cooperation and partnership between the two. The MoU will sustain the UAE’s global leadership, raise its global competitiveness, enhance DEWA’s efforts to achieve economic, social and environmental objectives (both locally and nationally), achieve comprehensive sustainable development, and enhance the UAE’s status in global benchmarking. This reflects the vision of our wise leadership to enhance the UAE’s global competitiveness and make it rank first in all fields.
The MoU will increase cooperation between the two parties to exchange information in international competitiveness indices, mainly global competitiveness indicators, as well as joint cooperation in statistical data and information, exchange of other forms of technical cooperation between the two sides on competitiveness, and coordinate efforts and cooperation to achieve sustainable development goals.
The meeting was also attended by Waleed Salman, Executive Vice President of Business Development & Excellence; Dr Yousef Al Akraf, Executive Vice President of Business Support and Human Resources; Khawla Al Mehairi, Executive Vice President of Strategy & Government Communications, and several officials from both parties.
“Through this MoU, we seek to consolidate the importance of concerted efforts between federal and local government organisations, to achieve the vision of our wise leadership, represented by His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to anticipate the future and adopt innovation to enhance the sustainability of development in all sectors of global competitiveness. The MoU aims to achieve the objectives of the UAE Centennial 2071, which is a long-term government work roadmap, paving the way for a brighter future for generations to come. It will also make it one of the best countries in the world. This MoU is important because of the solid strategic relations we have with the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, which works to develop and enhance the UAE’s performance in global competitiveness, statistics and data, by working with partners to implement initiatives and identify important policies in vital sectors. It also supports sustainable development efforts, and monitoring the competitive performance of the UAE in global competitiveness reports,” said Al Tayer.
“We aim to create a new global competitive advantage for the UAE through continuous development of our services and operational processes, efforts to develop the energy and water sectors in the UAE and the region, and to promote environmental, social and economic sustainability and increase reliance on renewable and clean energy through the launch of pioneering initiatives and major development projects. We have received over 170 prestigious local and international awards in the last three years. The UAE, represented by DEWA, ranked first globally for getting electricity, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018. The extensive report uses multiple criteria to measure the ease of doing business in 190 economies around the world. DEWA also won the highest award in the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. DEWA is the first organisation outside Europe to receive this international award as a first applicant, and now ranks in the Platinum category,” added Al Tayer.
“DEWA provides its services according to the highest standards of availability, efficiency and reliability. DEWA’s installed capacity is 10,213MW of electricity and 470 MIGD of desalinated water. It offers services to over 846,000 customers in Dubai with the help of 11,000 employees. DEWA has achieved very competitive results in its global benchmarking, surpassing the private sector and major European and American utilities in efficiency and reliability. It has been able to raise the efficiency of energy production, using the latest technologies and adopting technological innovations, and also surpassed European and American utilities by reducing losses from electricity transmission and distribution networks to 3.3% compared to 6-7% in the US and Europe, and water network losses were reduced to 7.1%, compared to 15% in North America, which is one of best results in the world. DEWA also achieved the lowest customer minutes lost per year (CML) in the world of 2.68 CML compared to 15 minutes in Europe,” noted Al Tayer.
“We have launched Digital DEWA, the digital arm of DEWA, that reimagines the concept of service organisations and creates a new digital future for Dubai. Digital DEWA will enable us to apply a pioneering model for service organisations based on innovation in renewable energy, storing energy, Artificial Intelligence and digital services. DEWA aims to shift the status quo of service organisations and transform itself into the first digital organisation in the world, with self-control systems for storing renewable energy and expanding the use of AI and digital services. It focuses on four pillars to deliver a new utility experience for Dubai and the world. The first pillar is launching advanced solar power technologies in Dubai, the second is deploying a renewable energy grid that uses innovative energy storage technologies. This will make better use of the diversified clean energy mix, in line with Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050. The third pillar will expand on AI solutions to make Dubai the first city to provide AI-based electricity and water services. The fourth pillar uses connected technologies to provide 24/7 world-class service-delivery for Dubai. DEWA will launch a futuristic digital platform, a data hub named MORO, to improve the UAE’s digital capabilities to develop smart cities, provide state-of-the-art innovative solutions, and a successful model for Dubai and the world to benefit from our innovative approach,” concluded Al Tayer.
“We look forward to working with DEWA on a number of joint strategic initiatives in statistics, data and global competitiveness. This collaboration for the purpose of enhancing the UAE’s statistical ecosystem, working on elevating the UAE’s global competitiveness and ranking in international indicators and supporting the country’s efforts to achieve the international agenda for sustainable development 2030,” said Lootah.
“The MOU with DEWA falls within the FCSA’s strategy that underlines the importance of innovative partnerships with government and private sector entities. Such partnerships can provide great advantages in the form of knowledge and best practice sharing, in support of the UAE’s national development journey to achieve prosperity and sustainability and to be one of the best countries in the world by the year 2071,” concluded Lootah.