HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD& CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) welcomed a high-level delegation from the World Bank Group. The delegation included Riccardo Puliti, Senior Director, Energy and Extractives, Erik Fernstrom, Head of International Energy and Extractives Global Practice, and Waleed AlSuraih, Senior Energy Specialist and Extractives in the Middle East and North Africa. Waleed Salman, Executive Vice President of Business Development & Excellence at DEWA, attended the meeting.
This visit strengthened cooperation between DEWA and the World Bank Group. DEWA presented its achievements, initiatives and projects to contribute to the comprehensive improvement of government performance and cultivating innovation and sustainability in all its processes. Last February, DEWA and World Bank Group co-hosted a workshop on CSP Markets, System Value, and Financing, which to show how Dubai is successfully integrating CSP into its power system at a market-changing drop in price, and sharing knowledge and exchanging best practices about CSP technologies and financing, and how it contributes to greening energy systems alongside other renewables.
Al Tayer presented the most important projects, initiatives and programmes undertaken by DEWA to achieve the UAE Centennial 2071, the UAE Vision 2021 and the Dubai Plan 2021, where its strategic priorities are energy supply security, and the positioning of Dubai to become a global role model in energy efficiency and reliability, a green economy and sustainability. To support these ambitious goals, the UAE, represented by DEWA, was ranked first world-wide for getting electricity as per the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018. In terms of global benchmarking with other utilities, DEWA recorded the best global results of 2.68 Customer Minutes Lost per year (CML), compared to 15 minutes recorded by leading utilities in the European Union and the United States. DEWA reduced losses in power transmission and distribution networks to 3.3%, and water network losses decreased to 7.1%, compared to 15% in North America.
The World Bank Group delegation expressed its admiration and appreciation for DEWA’s innovative and pioneering projects, praising what it has achieved thus far on a global scale.