The Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) believes its smart grid can help Dubai become the smartest and happiest city in the world.

The smart grid that Dewa is implementing is supported by investments of AED7bn. It ensures two-way communications between the utility and its customers, allows for monitoring the various components of the power and water networks, and provides features that include automated decision-making capabilities and interoperability across the entire electricity and water network to ensure smooth, fast and efficient operation.

In 2014, Dewa developed its first smart grid strategy. In 2021, it launched an updated smart grid strategy up to 2035, transitioning the smart grid programmes into six themes covering19 smart grid enablers that support Dewa’s objectives.

“We work to provide a state-of-the-art and integrated infrastructure for electricity and water to meet the growing demand and keep pace with the sustainable development needs and make Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, CEO of Dewa. “This goes in parallel with providing electricity and water services according to the highest standards of availability, reliability, sustainability and quality by managing facilities and services via a smart and interconnected network that adopts the latest disruptive technologies, including AI, blockchain, energy storage, IoT and others.”

In 2022, losses from electricity transmission and distribution networks were reduced to 2.2% compared with 6 to 7% in Europe and the USA. Water network losses were also reduced to 4.5% compared with around 15% in North America.

Dewa has achieved a new world record in electricity customer minutes lost per year. Dubai recorded 1.19 minutes per customer, compared with around 15 minutes recorded by utility companies in the European Union.

Dewa’s six main themes are:

• Foundational capabilities: These are the enablers that form the backbone of the smart grid. This theme includes enterprise integrated architecture, advanced metering infrastructure for electricity and water, IT infrastructure, communications network, and security.
• Grid automation: This focuses on deploying sensors, controls and software to organise transmission and distribution network operations. This theme includes renewables, dispatch and forecasting, asset management, transmission automation, and distribution automation.
• Smart energy and green mobility: This supports the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 and the Dubai Net Zero Carbo Emissions Strategy 2050 to provide 100% of Dubai’s total power production capacity from clean energy sources by 2050. It includes distributed energy resources, utility scale storage, and smart charging and infrastructure.
• Smart water: This focuses on providing data to understand the status of the assets in the grid and perform maintenance based on AI analytics, which extends the lifespan of the water network assets. This includes operational excellence, customer focus and digital transformation.
• Artificial intelligence: This aims to benefit from analysing data derived from AI, to provide added value and enhance customer happiness. This pillar includes internal and external data insights.
• Value-added services: This focuses on the customer and promoting new products and services while enhancing existing ones. This includes smart applications and value-added services.

As part of the smart grid strategy, Dewa has launched several programmes and initiatives, including the smart grid data governance platform, to ensure compliance with all data policies and procedures. This ensures best practices in accountability, decision-making structure, data management and stewardship. The platform manages data as an asset, and defines and approves data strategies, policies, standards, procedures and metrics.

Among the programmes launched by Dewa under the umbrella of the smart grid is an automatic smart grid restoration system, the first of its kind in the Mena region, to increase the control, management and monitoring of its power network. The system works around the clock without any human intervention. It uses a smart central system that locates the fault in the power network, isolates it, and automatically restores the service. This improves grid automation, fault detection and retrieval of connections. It also supports Dewa’s efforts to maintain supplies according to the standards of reliability, accountability and efficiency.

In 2022, Dewa launched a big data and analytics platform to integrate smart grid applications and operational technologies. This enables the processing of large amounts of data and provides fact-based analytics and forecasting for current and future projects. The platform contributes to improving the operations and management of assets and smart meters, thus improving the experience of stakeholders and enhancing their happiness.

Th high-water usage alert service, supported by the smart grid, detects any leaks in the water connections after the meter. The system sends instant notifications to customers if it detects any unusual increase in consumption, so they can quickly repair the internal connections, or any leaks in the water connections with the help of a specialised technician, and perform the necessary maintenance work to reduce waste.

Since its launch in 2019, the service has detected 1.5 million water leakages in water connections after the meter, more than 30,000 defects, and 13,000 cases of increased load. This contributed to achieving financial savings estimated at AED571.2m.