Dubai, UAE, 03 May 2012: HE Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), has welcomed Dr. Angelika Niebler, President of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with the Arabian Peninsula, at its headquarters.

The visiting delegation will hold a number of meetings with senior officials and key government institutions in the UAE. DEWA's reception was attended by Waleed Salman, EVP of Strategy & Business Development; Jassim Rajab, Financial Controller; Nasser Abbas, Senior Director of Treasury, and Khawla Al Mehairi, VP of Marketing & Corporate Communications.

The European Parliament is one of the world's largest, with 752 members representing 27 member European states. The delegation specializes in implementing legislation and laws, and its visit aims to share best practices and explore collaboration opportunities.

Al Tayer shared insights with Dr. Niebler about the strong bilateral relations between the UAE and the European Union (EU) on several areas, and energy in particular.

The MD & CEO presented an overview of DEWA's successful track-record, including its implementation of innovative strategies to support the directives of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make Dubai a global hub for finance, business and tourism, which in turn has been instrumental in helping DEWA to achieve its vision to be a sustainable world-class utility.

"With a history of nearly five decades, DEWA is indeed an impressive success story, marked by high efficiency and competencies across all levels of its operations. DEWA is one of the world's best organizations, providing quality services on par with the performance of its peers in the developed countries. DEWA has achieved outstanding excellence in efficiency, reliability, sustainability, conservation, demand management, optimal infrastructure investment management and network operations. DEWA has also achieved significant results surpassing global standards in the private sector, outperforming the top ten companies in America and Europe in terms of availability, reliability and efficiency," said Al Tayer.

"DEWA electricity line losses were only 3.49% compared with 4.3% by leading European utilities, while customer minutes lost per year was only 5.8 minutes, compared with 16.4 recorded by European utilities. Production efficiency has also improved by more than 20% over the period of 2006 to 2011. In addition, DEWA further enhanced its electricity and water services by boosting its competitive edge in the market, with production capacity reaching 9,646 MW of electricity, and 470 million gallons of desalinated water per day."

Al Tayer gave an overview of DEWA's most important projects, especially in the field of clean and renewable energy in accordance with the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to enhance sustainable development in Dubai, and the Green Economy for Sustainable Development initiative. Among the innovative steps taken by Dubai are the launches of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park and the Dubai Carbon Centre of Excellence, the adoption of a smart grid strategy and roadmap to manage demand for electricity by improving methods of generation, deployment and distribution, and utilizing clean-coal based generation technologies.

"These projects are part of the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030: a key component of the strategy of the Government of Dubai that aims to improve power supply and sustainability as part of its overall sustainable development goals. The projects aim to fulfill present and future needs, to create an urban environment that supports the sustainability of Dubai's resources, while providing efficient clean-energy solutions to achieve a low carbon-print economy. The Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030 includes increasing and further diversifying energy resources in the Emirate by 2030 with an energy mix of 5% from solar energy, 12% from nuclear power, 12% from clean coal, and 71% from natural gas," said Al Tayer.

The EU Delegation outlined Europe's experience in the field of power generation and distribution, guaranteeing high reliability in power supply.  The delegation also pointed out that the EU is making significant investments in research and development, especially in environment and energy, with investments reaching approximately EUR 80 billion to find the best ways of disposing waste and reducing carbon emissions.

The delegation praised the progress achieved by the UAE in various fields, mainly in infrastructure development over the last 20 years, and confirmed that Europe is looking forward to participating in the Dubai Global Energy Forum 2013, which coincides with the Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition 2012 (WETEX 2012).

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For more information, please contact:
Ribal Dayekh
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority
Tel: +971 4 324 4444   
Fax:+971 4 324 8111
Email: ribal.dayekh@dewa.gov.ae

© Press Release 2012