DEWA wins two awards at Asian Power Awards 2024

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has won two awards at the Asian Power Awards 2024, one of the most prestigious regional honours in the energy sector. The awards were announced at a ceremony held at the Conrad Centennial Hotel in Singapore. This achievement highlights DEWA’s global leadership in innovation within the renewable and clean energy sectors. DEWA received the ‘Innovative Power Technology of the Year - UAE’ award for its Actual Load Profiles Simulator (ALPS) for the Distribution Network and the ‘Smart Grid Project of the Year - UAE’ award for its Distribution Automation Smart Grid projects.

HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, expressed his pleasure with the new accolades, which add to DEWA’s record of local and international achievements. He noted that these awards reflect global recognition of DEWA’s efforts and projects, solidifying its leading position among utilities in Asia and worldwide, particularly in adopting cutting-edge smart technologies in power transmission and distribution.

“We embrace innovation and the latest Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to continue enhancing Dubai’s electricity and water infrastructure, managing facilities and services through a smart, integrated network. Our smart grid, with a total investment of AED 7 billion through 2035, plays a crucial role in providing services that meet the highest standards of availability and reliability. This grid provides advanced features such as interoperability across the entire electricity and water network, ensuring seamless, fast and efficient operations. Smart grids also improve the efficiency of power transmission and distribution, reduce losses, enhance electrical load management and support the integration of renewable energy sources into the electricity grid, thereby advancing the sustainability of Dubai’s energy system,” added Al Tayer.

Actual Load Profiles Simulator (ALPS)

ALPS, developed by DEWA, is an innovative system incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, ground weather station data and IT infrastructure to generate actual load profiles in the electricity distribution network, which includes photovoltaic power stations. The core purpose of this system is to simulate Distributed Photovoltaic (DPV) generation profiles based on real weather data, resulting in accurate actual load profiles. One of the key features of ALPS is the PV simulation model, which generates DPV production profiles without requiring PV generation meters for each DPV installation across the network.

Distribution Automation Smart Grid Projects

The Smart Grid of the Distribution Power Division represents a significant advancement in the digitisation of electricity networks, enabling round-the-clock remote control and management of power grids without physical human intervention. Additionally, the smart projects use a centralised self-healing programme and the Automatic Smart Grid Restoration Application (ASGR) to restore power supply within one minute. This has enabled DEWA to achieve the world’s lowest electricity Customer Minutes Lost (CML) in 2023, with just 1.06 minutes per customer, compared to approximately 15 minutes recorded by leading utility companies in the European Union.

DEWA has previously won multiple categories at the Asia Power Awards, including ‘Transmission & Distribution Project of the Year,’ ‘Smart Grid Project of the Year’ and ‘Environmental Upgrade of the Year.’