HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) received a delegation of American companies headed by Danny Sebright, President of the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council. The delegation included representatives of the following companies: Accenture, Access Partnership, Cisco, Honeywell, IBM, K&L Gates, Mastercard, Parsons, PayPal, SAS Institute, and VMware. The meeting discussed ways to strengthen cooperation through DEWA’s initiatives, programmes, projects, and investment opportunities in energy and water.
The meeting was attended by Shakir Farsakh, Principal Commercial Officer at the US Consulate in Dubai. Dr Yousef Al Akraf, Executive Vice President of Business Support and Human Resources at DEWA; Waleed Salman, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Excellence; and Marwan Bin Haidar, Executive Vice President of Innovation and the Future at DEWA, were also present.
During the meeting, Al Tayer presented DEWA’s key projects, initiatives and programmes that support the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. He also highlighted DEWA’s experiences and best practices in anticipating and shaping the future of energy by pioneering a futuristic model for utilities in the production, transmission, and distribution of electricity and water.
Al Tayer highlighted DEWA’s achievements, noting that its investments over the next five years exceed AED 81 billion, to meet the increasing demand for electricity and water in Dubai. DEWA’s efforts resulted in the UAE, represented by DEWA, ranking first globally for getting electricity as per the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 report. DEWA is also the first organisation outside Europe to receive the Global Excellence Award from the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and the first organisation to achieve this as a first time applicant. Through this pioneering achievement, DEWA is now in the Platinum category, which is the highest international rank in the Global Excellence Index.
“We are building the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which has a planned capacity of 5,000 megawatts by 2030, at a total investment of AED 50 billion. It supports the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 to provide 75% of Dubai’s total power output from clean energy sources by 2050 and make Dubai a global hub for clean energy and green economy,” said Al Tayer.
Al Tayer highlighted DEWA’s project in Hatta to construct a pumped-storage hydroelectric power station in the mountains next to the Hatta dam, with a capacity of 250MW, as well the smart grids, and DEWA’s efforts to support the Smart Dubai initiative to make Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world. DEWA has launched Digital DEWA, its digital arm. It has adopted a pioneering model for utilities that is based on innovation in renewable energy, energy storage, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and digital services.
“DEWA has achieved very competitive results in its global benchmarking, surpassing major European and American utilities in efficiency and reliability. It has reduced losses from electricity transmission and distribution networks to 3.3% compared to 6-7% in the US and Europe. DEWA also achieved the lowest customer minutes lost per year (CML) in the world of 2.68 CML, compared to 15 minutes in Europe. DEWA managed to decrease water network losses from 42% in 1988 to 7.1% in 2017, compared to 15% in North America, which is one of the best results in the world,” noted Al Tayer.
The U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council expressed interest in participating in DEWA’s projects in clean and renewable energy and water sectors.