Dubai’s smart programmes increase water conservation and network efficiency
Water networks keep pace with rapid growth and development of emirate, Dewa says
Dubai: The length of Dubai’s water network pipeline has quadrupled to 15,948 kilometres from 3,349.88 kilometres back in 1992, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has announced on Monday.
Dubai’s water storage capacity has also increased from 38 million gallons in 1992 to 815 million gallons today, an increase of 20.44 per cent. Dewa said it will increase the storage capacity to 1,002 million gallons this year. Dewa also announced its network losses have dropped from 42 per cent in 1988 to 5.1 per cent today, which is one of the lowest percentages worldwide.
Smart metres
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and CEO of Dewa, said: “Dewa replaced all its mechanical water meters with smart ones in 2020. It also started operating the Smart Meters Analysis and Diagnosis Centre, where 879,000 smart meters are read and monitored remotely every 15 minutes. This helps Dewa improve the meter readings availability to 99.9 per cent. Remote control of smart meters also identified and handled 457,233 water leakage reports, 16,103 defects, and 7,974 cases of increased load over the past three years.”
Through the smart meters, Dewa has enabled customers to monitor their water and electricity consumption digitally and proactively without needing to contact Dewa, as part of the Smart Living initiative. The initiative includes a suite of awareness and incentive programmes to rationalise electricity and water use and find solutions to any problems and constraints that increase waste or overuse.
One example is the ‘My Sustainable Living Programme’ which enables customers to compare their consumption with that of similar homes, and to benefit from the offers provided by Dewa Store, to enhance control over consumption, and use energy- and water-saving devices. The Smart Living initiative has achieved significant results. Some 900,000 customers have benefited from the initiative since its launch in July 2020 to 30 April 2021.
High water usage alert
Dewa’s High-Water Usage Alert initiative helps customers find leaks in their water connections after the meter. The system sends instant notifications to the customer if there is an unusual increase in consumption, to check the internal connections and repair any leaks with the help of a specialist technician. More than 287,000 accounts have benefited from the service since its launch in May this year. The service saved more than 5.77 billion gallons of water and customers over Dh317 million, according to Dewa
Hydronet project
Dewa has also developed its Hydronet project to use AI (artificial learning) and Deep Learning. Hydronet has saved Dh5.3 million annually by remotely monitoring and controlling the water network in Dubai.