HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer showcases Dubai’s Excellent Practices in Energy Efficiency and Water Desalination

Saturday 05 December 2015

Paris - MENA Herald: Within the activities of the twenty-first session of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 21), held in Paris  and in the presence of His Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State for Special Affairs Energy of the UAE and Special Climate Envoy for Energy and Climate Change, His Excellency  Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice Chairman of the  Dubai Supreme Council of Energy in Dubai, and MD& CEO of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority showcased Dubai’s excellent practices in energy efficiency and water desalination, during his participation in the panel discussion organised during the launch of the "Global Alliance for desalination clean water H2O Minus CO2".

The panel discussion was moderated by Jean-Louis Bal, President “Syndicat des Energies Renouvelables” in France.

The panel was attended by Ahmed Belhoul, CEO-Masdar, Paddy Padmanathan, CEO - ACWA Power, Jean-Louis Chaussade, CEO-SUEZ Environnement, Rapahel Schoentgen, VP-Research-ENGIE, and Andrea Watson, Head of Strategy and Integrated Applications –National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the USA.

HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said “ I would like to commend this alliance and wish you all the success in order to contribute in bringing value not only to the milestones achieved by the UAE in its sustainability drive and the preservation of our environement and precious water resources but for the region as well”.   

“Recently, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai launched the Dubai Clean Enery Strategy 2050 , through which Dubai aims to produce 75% of its energy using clean sources. The strategy focuses on five key pillars, including infrastructure , legislation , green fund , skills and knowledge and environmently friendly energy mix for both electricity and water. By 2030, we should be able to produce an enviromently friendly energy mix , 25% from Solar, 7% from Clean Coal, 7% from Nuclear and 61% from Natural Gas”, HE added.

“In Dubai our production capacity 470 MIG per day of desalinated water. This summer we reached a peak load of 350 MIG per day and out of this 20 million is produced using Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology. Also in Dubai most of the plants are using Multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) technology, and only 6 % use RO technology. So 70 % of our production is from the waste heat and it is fuel free . This means that its carbon footprint is zero. Also we combine water and power to improve efficiency while reducing capital and operating costs as it is,” HE said.

“In line with the newly launched Dubai Clean Enery Strategy 2050 , it is not feasible to retrofit the exsiting plants by PV or solar panels. So to reduce carbon emissions in the future, these MSF plants needs to be connected to a central solar plant. Our Future strategy consists of building ROs to meet water demand since they require only 30 to 40 % of energy required for MSF (which Energy intensive technology). Our carbon abatement strategy focuses on reducing carbon emissions by 16% by 2021, DEWA contributes by more than 50% of this target.  These targets will be reviewed in the light of the newly declared Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050,” HE added.  

“DEWA has a full research and development programme with a budget of 136 Million dollars for the next five years. This programme focuses on clean and sustainable solutions for the generation of electricity and water and we have already started with some projects through the UAE Water Aid Foundation “Suqia” that will produce clean water using clean solar energy, HE concluded.

Search form