Dubai Electricity and Water Authority | Winning the Outstanding Innovation Award 2021

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has won a Global Business Excellence Award for Outstanding Innovation from Awards Intelligence in the UK. DEWA won the award for its Smart Living initiative, which it launched to help customers adopt a sustainable lifestyle, digitally and proactively monitor their water and electricity usage, and resolve any issues causing excessive waste without having to contact DEWA.

“This award adds to the Hamdan bin Mohammed Programme for Government Services Flag 2020, which we are proud to have received for the Smart Living initiative as well. This new award is a result of the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to promote conservation and protect natural resources. DEWA adopts innovation, the latest Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data to develop its services according to the highest standards of efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability. DEWA also helps customers increase the efficiency of their electricity and water consumption. This reduces the carbon footprint and achieves the Demand Side Management Strategy to reduce 30% of electricity and water demand by 2030 in addition to DEWA’s vision to become a globally leading sustainable innovative corporation,” said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA.

The jury praised the transparency of the Smart Living initiative for showing usage of electricity and water, which helps customers to manage how much they use and conserve natural resources. The jury noted that the initiative has several advantages. It provides customers with clear information clearly detailed on their bills. It helps them monitor monthly, daily, and weekly usage, and compare their use of electricity and water with neighbouring homes. Clients receive warnings when their usage becomes unusually high, tips on how to conserve resources, and discounts on energy saving devices.

The Smart Living initiative has achieved significant results. Some 618,913 customers have benefited from the initiative since its launch in July 2020 up to January 2021. The Smart Living initiative has achieved savings of up to 179.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 67.7 million gallons of water. This is equal to savings of AED 52.6 million. Smart adoption of the initiative reached 100% while 1.24 million digital visits have been recorded. The initiative reduced 15,643 tonnes of carbon emissions. Customer trust has increased to 92% while their satisfaction reached 98%. The initiative has improved the productivity of employees by 27% while service quality reached 94%.

The initiative provides a digital control dashboard to monitor usage on DEWA’s smart app and website. The initiative interacts with customers who have smart electricity and water meters. It enables them to monitor their usage and get daily, monthly, and annual reports. The ‘My Sustainable Living’ programme enables residential customers to compare their monthly electricity and water use with the average usage of similarly efficient homes. It also offers customers discounts on DEWA Store to use energy and water saving devices and improve their control of their electricity and water. Using its Away Mode, the initiative allows DEWA to send consumption details to customers by email on a daily or weekly basis when they activate the offer while they are away from their homes. The initiative also includes the auto-scheduling feature to make an appointment for a technical team visit with real-time updates on the status of the request. DEWA has also added a Virtual Call Back feature for customers to book timings suitable to them, for DEWA’s virtual call back appointment through its online channels. The High Water Usage Alert is part of the smart response initiative to help customers locate any possible internal water leaks.