Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) organised an open meeting with its suppliers from small and medium enterprises (SME), in line with its commitment to strengthen partnerships with its suppliers who contribute to the excellence of its operations.

Around 80 SME owners and representatives attended the meeting where they voiced their opinions and ideas, and were introduced to Dewa’s initiatives and programmes, that aim to empower the business environment, and enhance the role of SMEs in Dubai’s business environment.

“The Eight Principles of Governance in Dubai, launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, show that Dubai is a global hub that focuses on creating economic opportunities. Dubai’s growth is driven by three factors: a credible, resilient and excellent government; an active, fair and open private sector; and public and government-owned flagship companies that compete globally and move the economy locally,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dewa.

“Within this framework, we are keen on building strategic relations with private sector organisations, especially with SMEs. At DEWA, we are committed to the best practices and highest standards of transparency in our relationship with partners. We adopt a culture of creativity and innovation as a standard practice to develop services and raise their efficiency. We expect our partners to adhere to these standards to build and establish long-term cooperation relationships; contributing to our shared vision of strengthening Dubai’s position, which ranked first in the world’s most attractive city for entrepreneurs, as per the business survey of 2018 by the Alliance Global Business Center network.”

Representatives of SMEs expressed their appreciation at Dewa for organising the meeting, which contributed to strengthening their strategic relationship and learning about Dewa’s requirements. They emphasised that Dewa offers various opportunities for SMEs and opens its doors towards pioneering projects and innovative ideas that benefit all parties concerned.

The UAE, represented by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), has maintained its first global ranking, for the second consecutive year, with scores of 100% in all Getting Electricity indicators in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 report. The report measures the ease of doing business in 190 economies around the world. Dewa achieved competitive results in global benchmarking, surpassing the private sector and major European and American utilities in efficiency and reliability. Dewa raised the efficiency of its energy production by using the latest technologies and adopting technological innovations, surpassing European and American utilities, by reducing losses from electricity transmission and distribution networks to 3.3% compared to 6–7% in the US and Europe. DEWA also achieved the lowest customer minutes lost per year (CML) in the world of 2.39 CML compared to 15 minutes in Europe and was also able to reduce water network losses to 6.5% in 2018 compared to 15% in North America, which is one of the best results in the world.

In April 2013, HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Minister of Finance and President of DEWA, inaugurated the M-Station, largest power generation and water desalination plant in the UAE, with a capacity of 2,185 megawatts (MW) of electricity and 140 million imperial gallons of water per day (MIGD) using the most advanced technologies. M-Station was built at a cost of AED 10.15 billion. This includes AED 6.2 billion to generate 2,185MW of electricity from 6 Siemens F-model gas turbines, each with a capacity of 255MW; 6 boilers for waste-heat recovery; and 3 steam turbines, each with a capacity of 218MW. Water desalination systems cost AED3.95 billion from 8 desalination units deploying Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) distillation technology, each with a capacity of 17.5 MIGD and totalling 140 MIGD, two dual-fuel-fired auxiliary boilers of 390 tonnes per hour, and 16 fuel-oil storage tanks, each with a capacity of 20,000 cubic metres, with total fuel-oil storage of 320,000 cubic metres.

In January 2012, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the largest single-site solar park in the world, which has a total planned capacity of 1,000MW by 2020, and 5,000MW by 2030, with a total investment of AED 50 billion. After completion, the solar park will reduce 6.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

The 13MW first phase became operational on 22 October 2013, comprising around 152,000 photovoltaic cells, connected to 13 transformers in inverter buildings.