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Dewa campaign for saving power, water

DUBAI — Public utility Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has launched a campaign to rationalise power and water consumption and avoid wastage, a top official has said.

“As part of Dewa’s strategic plan, several programmes were launched for the rationalisation of consumption in many consumer sectors and enhance the efficiency and reliability of water and electricity networks by renovating them, which would eventually lead to saving millions,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the Managing Director and CEO of Dewa.

The culture of rationalisation of electricity and water consumption and avoiding wastage are given priority as they constitute an important pivot in Dewa’s strategic plan, Al Tayer told the seventh ‘Water, Energy Technology and Environment Exhibition’ (Wetex 2005) at which Dewa signed a contract with the Consortium Marketing Consultancy, a media studies organisation, to conduct the campaign.

“The initiative started 15 years ago when Dewa succeeded in rehabilitating the water network and thus reducing the water loss from 42 per cent to 12 per cent,” said Al Tayer, who is also chairman of the Higher Committee for the Rationalisation of Consumption.

“Dewa also succeeded in reducing the loss in electricity network by 5.6 per cent as compared with 6 per cent earlier. Dewa organised awareness and educational campaigns about rationalisation of consumption for all consumer sectors and succeeded in increasing the savings from electricity worth Dh6.6 million in 2002 to Dh10 millions in 2003. It is expected that the savings will multiply in the next few years because of the ongoing rationalisation programme in the government departments.”

Al Tayer added that Dewa’s programmes include improving fuel consumption in power stations, which contributed to enhancing the efficiency of stations from 30 per cent to 84 per cent and an initiative to adopt thermal insulation system in buildings in cooperation with Dubai Municipality.

Thermal insulation has become compulsory from April 2003 and will contribute to the reduction of power consumption in air-conditioning systems by 40 per cent.

Dewa introduced the Perfect Consumer Award, in which 45,000 consumers participated leading to improved consciousness in association with NGOs like the Shaikh Zayed Environmental Award and Emirates Group.