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UAE Freezones Biz News Updates
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DEWA highlights water sustainability at Emirati-Swiss Friendship Forum
During the third session of The Emirati-Swiss Friendship Council held at the
Almas Tower in Jumeirah Lake Towers in Dubai, HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD
and CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, said that DEWA remains
focused on the sustainability of its resources in line with the directives
of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime
Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
DEWA is focusing on resources sustainability and has revised its strategy
this year to achieve its vision to be ‘A Sustainable World-Class Utility,’
to achieve Dubai’s strategy to support sustainable development, as per its
motto, ‘For Generations to Come.’ This has set the tone for a corporate-wide
sustainability strategy to meet today’s needs without compromising the
requirements of future generations.
The third session of The Emirati-Swiss Friendship Council is being held in
the presence of HH Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, Advisor to the
President of the UAE, HH Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister for
Higher Education and Scientific Research of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan
bin Khalifa al Nahyan and Pascal Couchepin, Former President of Switzerland
and other sheikhs and dignitaries.
“One of DEWA’s most important objectives is the reduction of
unaccounted-for-water, which had reached unacceptable levels. Accordingly,
an internationally-experienced consultant was assigned to assist our team in
the analysis of the root causes of the problem, and then recommend the
necessary steps to solve this problem. The result of the extensive survey of
the entire system showed that 24 percent of the water was wasted due to
leakage. This was mostly in the house-connection plastic pipes and old
cast-iron fittings in the transmission and distribution system. 12 percent
was due to inaccurate water meters, 2 percent was due to unmetered
connections, and 2 percent due to operational flushing of the system.
Accordingly, the project was awarded to rectify these defects to several
contractors, to save time and distribute the work load, due to the
geographic nature of the work, which of course covers the entire water
network,” said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA.
“As a result, we have replaced all the cast-iron fittings with
glass-reinforced fiber fittings. Furthermore, all house connections now have
been replaced with newly-upgraded polyethylene pipes. All meters have been
replaced with new ones and old meters have been removed, reconditioned and
tested. The comprehensive survey has also eliminated all the unmetered
connections and new meters have been installed.
As a result of these projects, we managed to bring unaccounted-for-water
from 40 percent to 15 percent in a total of five years, and thereafter we
continued this throughout the development of DEWA’s water network, which has
further decreased unaccounted-for-water, to 11.26 percent as of mid-2012,”
added Al Tayer.
“DEWA invested about AED 450 million on these projects, which has resulted
in savings of over AED 6 billion which is equivalent of the cost of water
saved. With this achievement, we have put a very challenging target to
further bring down the unaccounted-for-water to 6 percent by 2016 and to do
so; an action plan has been established with the required budget, which
consists of the following objectives.”
“The First Objective is to replace all the existing mechanical meters with
new intelligent meters that are more accurate and subsequently so is our
billing, which will enhance our customer services, as this provides online
monitoring of customers’ consumption. This enables DEWA to notify customers
if there are any signs of abnormal consumption, as compared to their average
consumption.”
“The Second Objective is the establishment of a District Metering System for
every community connected to our SCADA System. This will provide continuous
monitoring of overall consumption by our consumers, when compared with the
consumption of the main meter for each district. This will help to rapidly
identify any leakage in the distribution system and therefore arrest any
leakage as soon as it occurs.”
“Furthermore, we will continue our extensive conservation campaign to the
general public. This is taking place at different levels from students up to
our customers, where we highlight the importance of this precious resource,
and how everyone can share the responsibility towards water sustainability,
both now and for generations to come,” concluded Al Tayer.
Participants in the meeting and the workshops to follow will discuss ways of
finding new methods to conserve water for coming generations as well as how
to maintain water sustainability as one of the biggest challenges at local,
regional and international levels for all people. |
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Courtesy Al Bawaba
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