InfraX plays key role in accelerating Dubai’s digital development

Customer Brief

Dubai, one of the cities with the highest quality of life in the Middle East, has a high level of urban management, energy supply and public services. Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) as the exclusive provider of electricity and water services to the citizens and residents of Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, plays an important role for that.

DEWA launched Digital DEWA as its digital arm in 2017, with the utility’s ambition to create a new digital future for Dubai and dedicate itself making DEWA the world’s first digital utility to use autonomous systems for renewable energy, storage, expansion in AI adoption, and providing digital services.

InfraX is the Information Communication and Technology arm of Digital DEWA, where it focusses on connecting Digital DEWA value added services from its Data Centers and Cloud Services to its customers.

Customer Challenge

DEWA has optical cable resources that are laid along transmission and distribution lines throughout Dubai and substations that cover all residential communities. How to make these resources contribute to achieve digital DEWA ambition has always been a concerned question. Research determined that government ministries, enterprises and their data centers had an urgent need to connect to each other via enterprise-class high quality broadband services.

However, most substations do not have sufficient space for deploying new ICT devices at the beginning of their construction. In addition, considering the security of existing services and personnel in substations, if ICT devices are co-deployed with existing electric power devices, subsequent O&M will be difficult. Therefore, in the substation, it is feasible to find a new site to build a dedicated communication equipment room. However, if the traditional building construction scheme is adopted, the construction progress of the whole project will be greatly delayed due to the long period of land survey, approval, and construction. If the assembled board house or common container solution is used, the protection, fireproof, and shockproof specifications of the equipment room cannot be ensured. How to realize the fast and good construction of the new telecommunication equipment room? 

Huawei Solution

Huawei’s solution to address equipment room construction problems included the one-stop FusionDC1000A solution, which features fast deployment, high reliability, digital O&M, and high convergence with ICT devices.

• Fast deployment: A highly integrated design is used, with power distribution, cooling, fire extinguishing, security protection, and monitoring subsystems prefabricated in factories and delivered as products. FusionDC1000A can be delivered in one day after simple hoisting and commissioning, saving over 85% of labor hours and making time to market much faster.
• High reliability: FusionDC1000A uses highly reliable containers with a service life of 25 years. The maximum IP65 protection level is resistant to dust and moisture. The shockproof capability is equivalent to McNair’s 9 intensity, which is comparable to that of traditional buildings. The high-strength mechanical lock protects core assets, and high-temperature resistant applications perfectly match the climate of Dubai. In addition, the container is naturally isolated from the main business of DEWA, so that customers can be assured of reliability and security.
• Digital O&M: An intelligent management platform implements unified management of power supply, cooling, access control, and CCTV on the entire network, visualized O&M, and unattended sites, providing a simplified O&M experience.

Customer Value

Huawei FusionDC1000A has been recognized by InfraX from deployment to O&M. The FusionDC1000A supported InfraX in deploying reliable and scalable services. The digitalization of DEWA is in line with the Dubai 10X initiative, launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, which mandates the Government of Dubai to be a global leader that is 10 years ahead of all other cities through government innovation and the reformation of traditional work mechanisms.