Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said it has achieved a major milestone globally, surpassing major European and American companies with the lowest water-loss rate of 8.26 per cent last year.

The Dubai utility aims to improve its future operations that include efforts to increase the efficiency and reliability of water networks to meet Dubai’s increasing demand.

Dubai has achieved its lowest ever water-loss rate of 8.26 per cent, thanks to the excellence, availability, efficiency, reliability, and great customer service provided by Dewa, said its top official.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive, said Dewa's success is mainly due to the use of its latest modern innovative methods for production, transmission, distribution and control systems for water networks.

"We have achieved milestones globally, surpassing major European and American companies by cutting water network losses from 9.1 per cent in 2014 to 8.26 per cent in 2015, compared to 15 per cent in North America.

Dewa managed to decrease water network losses from 42 per cent in 1988 to 10.4 per cent in 2013 as a result of it being made a priority by management.

"We will continue our efforts to replace Dubai’s entire water network by replacing old connections with new ones, replacing water meters, and developing new transmission and distribution networks that conform to the highest international standards," stated Al Tayer.

Stopping leaks in faulty systems will eliminate water loss by a large percentage and allow us to save a great deal of water," he noted.

According to him, Dewa has used Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) to survey the water network and identify and remotely-manage potential leaks in the system.

The utility has also adopted modern technology to scan the transmission and distribution networks to prevent cracks from causing leaks in the system, he said.

"Dewa is maintaining the efficiency of all its operations and currently has a capacity of 9,656 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and desalinates 470 million gallons every day," he added.-TradeArabia News Service