Itron delegation visits DEWA

Dubai, UAE, 3 January 2016: HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), recently received a delegation from Itron, a US smart meter company, at DEWA’s headquarters.  

The delegation included Simon Pontin, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Norbet Rickert, Senior Director of Smart Grid EMEA, Hussain Rizvi, Regional Director, Smart Grid Solutions Middle East and Turkey. DEWA’s Abdullah Obaidullah, Executive Vice President of Water & Civil, Rashid Bin Humaidan, Executive Vice President of Distribution Power, Waleed Salman, Executive Vice President of Strategy & Business Development, and Moza Al Akraf, CIO of DEWA, also attended the meeting.

The meeting supported the Smart Applications initiative for smart meters and grids, one of three smart initiatives announced by DEWA, along with Shams Dubai to encourage household and building owners to install photovoltaic panels on rooftops to generate solar power, and Green Charger to build the infrastructure and charging stations for electric vehicles in the Emirate.

The parties discussed mutual interests in electricity, water smart grids, the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and related installation plans within SAP to measure, integrate and automate all DEWA’s operations to deliver top-quality services for its customers, employees and partners.

Within the first phase, DEWA is currently installing 200,000 smart meters. DEWA plans to install over one million smart meters by 2020 across Dubai, and replace all mechanical and electromechanical meters during the next few years. The smart meters project complements the smart grid project by DEWA to implement a number of technical features in electricity networks - by using the latest SCADA systems, smart monitoring and control automation systems to provide electricity and water services to the highest standards of availability, efficiency and reliability.

The benefits of smart meters include providing automatic and detailed readings for consumers to monitor actual consumption for a specific period of time to better understand and manage their bills. Smart meters help identify energy efficiency solutions. They send readings automatically using advanced communication media such as fiber optic cables and storing the entire history of all consumption indicators and customer-related operations. Additionally, smart meters will support renewable sources of energy in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors by comparing supplies from consumption and generation sides.

At the end of their visit, the guest delegation thanked Al Tayer for his hospitality and for allowing them to take a closer look at DEWA’s current projects.