The view from the top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – currently the tallest building in the world – is breathtaking. Famous for Tom Cruise climbing up it in the Ghost Protocol movie, one of the things you notice from the viewing area, 163 floors up, is there are very few solar panels to be seen anywhere on the buildings below. In a country of everyday, glorious sunshine, this seems to be a glaring omission. But that’s about to change.
Supported by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, a new initiative to make Dubai the ‘smartest’ city in the world also supports diversifying its energy mix by promoting the use of clean and renewable energy sources.
Aimed at building a sustainable future for the Emirate, the Shams Dubai initiative is encouraging households to install photovoltaic (PV) panels to generate electricity and to ‘connect solar energy to buildings’ as part of the Distributed Renewable Resources Generation programme. Once connected to the grid, surplus energy can be exported and used via the power companies’ network.
However, the wide implementation of PV brings with it the burden of managing new energy loads, which can lead to high line loss and an unreliable service. Huawei is addressing these challenges with its state-of-the-art smart Intelligent Distribution Solution (IDS).
This solution helps global electric power enterprises improve their productivity and achieve shared success in digital and intelligent transformation. Based on Huawei’s ‘cloud-pipe-edge-pipe-device’ architecture, IDS leverages innovative technologies to help reduce line loss, improve power supply reliability, enhance user experience and provide assurance for the large-scale integration and consumption of new energy, such as solar.
At a special round table event at GITEX GLOBAL 2024, Dubai, one of the world’s largest tech exhibitions, Dr Moustafa Abdelhady M Shahin, smart grid expert and industrial advisory board Member at Heriot-Watt University, and Mr Andy Ding, Vice President of Electric Power Digitalization Business Unit, Huawei, discussed in detail how the Shams Dubai project was progressing and the ‘mega-trend’ of digitalisation in the power industry.
Dubai’s smart grid programme
Dubai’s Integrated Energy Strategy 2030 aims to increase renewable energy to 15% of its power needs by 2030. The launch of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park marks the first step towards this target, with the production and use of solar energy by citizens, businesses and industries contributing to this goal.
“We started the smart grid programme in Dubai in 2012,” Dr Moustafa says. “We knew it would have to be cutting edge across the grid – covering generation, transmission, distribution. While generation and transmission are well covered with good automation technologies, distribution was lagging behind. That’s why we launched our smart meter programme. We replaced all the conventional meters with advanced smart meters via a substitution and commission programme. We plan to also have 30% of the distribution substations automated.”
Dr Moustafa also explains that Dubai’s electricity and water authority has an advanced DMS (distribution management system) to leverage the data that is generated from the smart grid. He says that the authority has seen significant improvements in utility metrics, attributed to the integration of smart meter data and distribution information sensors, used to monitor asset conditions. The process has also been automated to build in predictive maintenance analytics using machine learning techniques.
This has resulted in the authority becoming more proactive in preventing grid failures and responding faster when they do occur, says Dr Moustafa. This has improved overall grid leverage, with renewable integration ensuring more resilience and based on real-time data, ensuring a more dynamic operation.
Renewable generation is intermittent and weather-dependent, with fluctuating demands based on weather conditions. Additionally, large solar generation can cause back feeding to the solution transformer. To address these issues, utilities should adopt more intelligent systems, says Dr Moustafa: “We need to have DAGs and distributed energy resources management to manage them. Sometimes, for safety or contingency, you need to disconnect them. That’s why you need to have monitoring and control over those.”
One project Dubai’s electricity and water authority has implemented is the virtual pipeline, which aggregates renewable energy sources and treats them as conventional power stations. This solution helps utilities manage high influx from renewable sources.
Collaborating to find industry-based solutions
Huawei’s approach to collaboration starts by looking at the industry’s pain points, explains Andy Ding.
“When we entered the electrical power industry, we didn’t just try to promote our existing product solution,” says Ding. “We aimed to work more closely with these companies so we can develop more industrial based targeted solutions. Most investment appears to be going into the generation and the transmission systems, but because of the changes coming to power distribution now, especially for low voltage, you need to know what has happened in the field when there is an outage.
“There are two key technologies that we have developed recently. One is the Smart Distribution Edge Computing Unit; the other is called HLPC. This next-generation high-speed power line carrier communication – on the low-voltage communication pipe side – supports minute-level data acquisition, massive interactive connections and has a 99% acquisition success rate. Both these technologies were developed by working more closely with the industry.”
Ding also tells us that Huawei is currently working with Middle East and African electricity companies which face significant challenges in improving their distribution networks.
“Of course, different countries have their own priorities,” notes Ding. “In South Africa, they have almost 50% line loss. In Saudi, they are more concerned about power supply reliability and in the last year have invested to increase capacity of the transformer and to extend coverage to more rural areas.”
Digitalisation as a ‘mega-trend’
Dr Moustafa tells us that future trends in the energy landscape include the three Ds – digitalisation, decarbonisation, and decentralisation, and focus on the importance of grid resilience and flexibility.
“Decentralisation is one of the mega-trends in the utility industry right now,” he says. “We can see the convergence. That’s why we want to test this technology. Decentralisation is essential for reliability and microgrids will be one of the key solutions – each part having its own brain that can operate on its own.”
Ding says that the distribution network is still the biggest challenge in the sector, but by working together challenges can be met and problems solved: “Digital technology can enable an integrated company to both solve their challenges and focus on their highest priorities. That’s why we talk with all these companies. We believe that IDS concepts and solutions can solve their main pain points.”
During HUAWEI CONNECT 2024, Huawei and its ecosystem partners jointly released the Intelligent Distribution Solution (IDS) at the Huawei Global Electric Power Summit. For more information, please click here.
