Digitalization and clean energy integration transforming the energy landscape in the country

Dubai, UAE, March 15, 2018:   ABB, the pioneering technology leader, has recorded steady and sustained growth in the United Arab Emirates in 2017. 

“ABB is seeing profitable growth and a huge opportunity in this market as we are partners to both the energy and industrial revolution that is taking place in the country and around the world,” said Mostafa Al Guezeri, Managing Director, ABB.

The company has been a stable partner to the country’s development and is continuing to push boundaries by supporting the transformation of energy landscape. 

Commenting on ABB’s four-decade history in the UAE, Mostafa Al Guezeri, Managing Director, said, “A land of endless possibilities is how the UAE likes being described and why not, as in a very short span the country has achieved global recognition for excellence in hospitality, logis-tics, airport management and now, clean energy and digitalization. We are fortunate and proud to have partnered with the UAE right from building one of the first water pumps for desalina-tion to today reliably harnessing solar energy at the Mohammed in Rashid Solar Park.” 

By 2020, projections suggest that there will be around two zettabytes of data in the Middle East— greater than the estimated number of grains of sand covering the entire Arabian De-sert*. 

“This massive increase in digitalization comes with similarly sized opportunities,” said Mostafa Al Guezeri. “We have already begun conducting workshops and knowledge transfer sessions with utility providers both in Dubai and Abu Dhabi discussing how Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping utilities and also the need for smart and connected devices both in power generation and transmission to reduce losses. 

 “We’re excited to bring our industry-leading digital solution offering, ABB Ability™, now to the UAE. As masters of the industrial control room, with an installed base of more than 70 million connected devices, 70,000 digital control systems and 6,000 enterprise software solutions, we unlock value with domain expertise and digital solutions.” 

ABB Ability™ brings together its digital capabilities as one unified offer. Recent contracts of ABB in the UAE already have the ABB Ability™ solutions implemented with them. 

ABB has supplied 600 grid-connected single phase solar inverters to power newly-built villas in Dubai’s Hatta region. Sponsored by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) to offer free solar panel installation across the 600 villas, this project meets the UAE’s plans to invest USD 163 billion to generate half the country’s power needs from renewable sources and increase clean-energy contributions at 50 percent by 2050. 

The inverters supplied by ABB are the UNO-DM – 4.0 integrated with the Aurora Vision® soft-ware, which is ABB’s remote monitoring solution for the inverters. Aurora Vision helps installers with easy integration and allows home owners access real-time data on how much energy has been harvested. It’s a cloud-based solution, available through a web browser user interface to the PV plant data, which provides highly interactive, real-time access to key performance and operations metrics to help plant management optimize decisions. 

ABB has also launched UAE’s first digitalized remote service center in Dubai, this year. The cen-ter will provide 24x7 access to information and support on drives installed at customer facilities for predictive maintenance and condition monitoring for all industries including power, cement, oil and gas, metals, food and beverage, in addition to many other applications. It will support customer installations in the UAE and around the world. 

“Our customers, mainly from the heavy industries where our drives have been installed, were invited to the remote service centre. It was heartening to see them engaged in our digital offer-ings as they understand that connected services will help with predictive maintenance as well as improve efficiency,” commented Al Guezeri. 

ABB is championing economic growth and prosperity without increasing carbon emissions. Walking the talk, in 2017, ABB installed the region’s largest privately-owned rooftop solar ener-gy system at its premises in Al Quoz. This, helping ABB produce clean energy enough to power up to 50 households a year, supports the DEWA’s Shams Dubai initiative and encourages house-holds to harness the sun’s power through rooftop solar panels. 

ABB has a firm commitment to the UAE with its presence here for over four decades employing nearly 1,000 people. The company has a clear Emiratisation strategy in place. 

“We hope to walk hand-in-hand with the UAE in transforming the country further into a modern yet sustainable economy,” said Al Guezeri.