DEWA wins the Smart Water Project of the Year Award 2024 at the Global Water Awards

DUBAI: In a new global achievement that adds to its record of success,Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has won the Smart Water Project of the Year Award 2024 at the prestigious Global Water Awards. DEWA received this award for its fully automated Hydro Insight system, a world first for a water utility. DEWA developed the system internally using the latest AI and data science technologies developed in-house for smart grid automation and management. The system allows DEWA to monitor over 1 million smart meters, and improve visibility on a range of areas, including water meter anomalies. This smart system has dramatically decreased meter anomaly detection time, from 30 days to a mere 1 hour, resulting in the conservation of 214 million gallons of water.

HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA, expressed his happiness at DEWA winning one of the most prominent international water awards. Al Tayer highlighted that the award comes in recognition of one of the world’s largest, advanced infrastructure projects for smart water meters.

“We follow the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to achieve Dubai’s Integrated Water Resources Management Strategy 2030. We continue to utilise the smart grid to develop our state-of-the-art infrastructure for managing facilities and services using disruptive and Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. DEWA is committed to consolidating its position as one of the most prominent utilities in the world and improving the monitoring and management of its water grid, the automation and efficiency of operations, and the reliability of water supplies. This supports DEWA’s global excellence in water network losses. DEWA recorded 4.6% water network losses compared to around 15% in North America,” said Al Tayer.

“Smart meters serve as the backbone of the smart grid and play a pivotal role in driving digital transformation. They enhance operational efficiency and mitigate losses. This ensures the delivery of our services according to the highest standards of availability, reliability, sustainability, and quality. DEWA has installed 1,066,558 smart water meters,” added Al Tayer.

“DEWA has demonstrated exceptional internal capabilities by equipping and maintaining the entire advanced infrastructure system for smart water meters, and using the latest technologies and systems. DEWA’s staff has developed innovative and automated systems to monitor the grid around the clock. This contributed to about AED 201.1 million in savings since 2017, and resolving more than 40,600 cases of meter malfunctions and 13,397 cases of overloads. DEWA has also notified over 1.9 million customers of their internal water leakage, which prevented the waste of more than 11 billion gallons of water, amounting to about AED 610 million,” said Abdullah Obaidullah, Executive Vice President of Water & Civil at DEWA.