The Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) is providing features to help its customers monitor their electricity and water consumption and choose smart conservation options, without needing to contact Dewa.
 
This is part of Dewa’s efforts to promote sustainability by instilling a culture of conservation and providing value-added services.
 
The initiative informs customers about billing and consumption by providing clear information on bills and their components, while explaining why consumption is high. These include seasonal differences in consumption, high-energy-using appliances such as air conditioners, water leaks, filling swimming pools or having several connections at home to one smart meter.
 
A digital control dashboard lets users monitor consumption through a smart app or web site, as well as providing tips and proactive plans to conserve consumption.
 
A proactive mechanism interacts with customers who have smart electricity and water meters. It enables them to monitor their consumption and get daily, monthly and annual reports. It also helps them select the date and time to conduct a field visit, identify the location accurately, and track the service request status.
 
This is done through the My Sustainable Living Programme, which enables residential users to compare their monthly electricity and water use with the average consumption of similarly efficient homes, and make informed decisions based on current data. This can inspire healthy competition among users to reduce their consumption.
 
Users can access the programme by logging onto their account on Dewa’s web site or smart app, and updating their consumption pattern file to benefit from conservation tips tailored to each user.
 
“Dewa works to promote a conservation culture and protect natural resources,” said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, CEO of Dewa. “As a socially responsible government organisation, throughout the year Dewa launches initiatives and conservation programmes using the latest Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, supported by artificial intelligence and big data. This enables customers to increase the efficiency of their water and electricity consumption and adopt a sustainable lifestyle. It also reduces the carbon footprint, achieves the demand-side management strategy to reduce 30% of demand by 2030, and Dewa’s vision to become a globally leading sustainable innovative corporation. We are working to replace all mechanical and electromechanical meters with smart meters by the end of this year covering the whole emirate of Dubai. This will enable all customers to monitor their consumption and reduce waste.”
 
The Dewa Store provides exclusive offers for smart home systems and consumption control devices as well as energy- and water-saving devices. This transforms homes into smart ones. Users can log into their Dewa accounts on the web site or smart app and use the store’s benefits.
 
Dewa also provides a high-water usage alert service as part of its smart response initiative. It helps users discover possible leaks in their water connections after the meter. The system sends instant notifications if there is an unusual increase in consumption to check the internal connections and repair any leaks with the help of a technician. This contributes to reducing incurred costs by limiting water waste. The service has saved over 500 million gallons of water, which is equal to over AED27m.