Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) have signed a memorandum of understanding with Dubai Airports to expand cooperation and promote Smart Dubai. The agreement aims to unify energies and resources, exchange knowledge, innovation, ideas and promotes effective communication to implement DEWA's three smart initiatives at Dubai Airports.
The country's initiatives include: Shams Dubai, which encourages home and building owners to install photovoltaic (PV) solar panels on rooftops to produce energy and connect it to DEWA's grid; Smart Applications, which uses smart meters and grids to speed up service delivery and response and ensure the reconnection in case of unplanned interruption, while rationalizing smart energy consumption; Green Charger, which aims to establish the infrastructure for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.
"In line with the long-term goals of the aviation industry, Dubai Airports' vision is to ultimately attain carbon-neutral growth, and this cooperation represents an important step towards achieving that goal," said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.
"Dubai Airports is constantly seeking innovative ideas and new technologies designed to limit our environmental impact through an integrated environmental strategy, while supporting the UAE Vision 2021, Dubai Plan, and the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy's goal of achieving 20 percent reduction in utilities bill for all government buildings by 2020," added Griffiths.
The Smart Dubai initiative was launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world, and to achieve the Dubai Plan 2021, which aims to make Dubai a smart, integrated, and connected city. "We are committed to strengthening our cooperation and working together to integrate Dubai's government institutions for the public good by implementing the three smart initiatives we launched, in 2014, to drive Dubai's smart transformation, at Dubai Airports' specified locations," said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, managing director and CEO of DEWA.
"This ensures the management of Dubai's services and facilities through connected and smart systems."
He continued that the Shams Dubai initiative to increase reliance on solar energy has already been responsible for the installation of photovoltaic panels on 439 buildings with a total capacity of 17.6 megawatts (MW). This will increase in the future to cover all buildings in the Emirate by 2030.
Customers' solar PV systems connected to DEWA's grid so far include the rooftop of the employees' building at Dubai World Central (DWC), which was the first Shams Dubai project with a capacity of 30 kilowatts at peak load (kWp), as well as the solar energy panels at Dubai International Airport's Concourse D building. Under DEWA's Smart Applications initiative, 200,000 smart meters were installed by January 2016 with plans to complete the installation of a further 1,200,000 by 2020. Smart meters will replace the mechanical and electromechanical counters all over Dubai. Meanwhile, as part of the Green Charger initiative, it aims to double the number of EV charging stations to 200 in 2018.
"DEWA has succeeded in transforming all its services into smart services within one year of the launch of the Smart Dubai initiative," said Al Tayer. "This saves [customers'] time and effort, and promotes DEWA's vision to become a sustainable innovative world-class utility."