Page 52 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Box 10: Dubai’s use of IoT for smart management of its electricity grid
145, 146, 147, 148, 149

Dubai is another city with a smart sustainable city initiative that was recently studied in
detail by ITU via a case study. The high-tech global centre has increasingly leveraged IoT in
recent years as part of its evolving digital ecosystem, which now includes the city’s integrated
energy infrastructure and services. IoT initiatives are expected to generate close to USD 14
billion in Dubai by 2021.

Towards the end of 2017, Dubai announced that Silver Spring Networks, the US-based global
provider of smart grid products that it had contracted with for implementing its city-wide
IoT network, had successfully implemented a multi-application IPv6 network canopy at the
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), which is the Emirate of Dubai’s integrated
public services infrastructure company for water and electricity. DEWA leverages ICTs
routinely as part of its mission to improve service provision and engage Dubai’s citizens to
save energy and water.

The IoT technology that DEWA acquired from Silver Spring is the latest Gen5 technology
that boasts high performance, reliability, security and, most importantly, scalability. The
technology has been integrated backward into more than 200 000 existing smart meter
devices in Dubai and will be functional for the remaining devices that will be installed by 2020,
covering the whole Emirate of Dubai and replacing all mechanical and electromechanical
meters. This will connect all electricity customers to the new IoT canopy under the city’s
Smart Meters and Grids initiative, which is part of the U.A.E. Vision 2021 and the Smart
Dubai Plan 2021.

Figure 13: Dubai and U.A.E. water and electricity consumption facts [xiii]

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