EWEC (Emirates Water and Electricity Company) and the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), today signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) focused on boosting sustainability best practices and promoting the adoption of Clean Energy Certificates (CECs) across the Emirate’s Industrial sector. The joint initiative aims to reinforce the competitiveness of Abu Dhabi’s energy sector and its relationship with the various Industrial and private sector’s manufacturing players.
EWEC will collaborate with ADDED through the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) to develop new solutions to support innovation in energy products. The parties will also spearhead the development of proposals to ensure continuous enhancements of the ecosystem to attract new investments and enable sustainable factories to thrive in Abu Dhabi, supporting Abu Dhabi’s long-term strategic plans, including Abu Dhabi Industrial Strategy, by leveraging the full potential of innovative technologies and enhancing sustainability across the ecosystem in line with the UAE Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative.
Sustainable innovation is at the heart of Abu Dhabi’s development strategies, including the Abu Dhabi Industrial Strategy, which includes plans for a smart, circular economy, catalyses value creation and ensures cost competitiveness. The Abu Dhabi Department of Energy (DoE) issued a Regulatory Policy for Clean Energy Certificates in August 2021, in a bid to drive the transition to a sustainable decarbonised energy sector and marking a foundational step to establishing an Energy Attribute Certificates market and facilitating trading renewable and nuclear energy attributes in the Emirate.
Commenting on the collaboration, H.E. Rashed Abdulkarim Al Blooshi, Undersecretary of ADDED, said: “We continue to actively pursue partnerships and alliances with both public and private sector market players to ensure that Abu Dhabi’s smart and circular economy is on track to achieve its objectives, and in turn, the UAE’s sustainability goals are being met”.
H.E. Al Blooshi explains further, “Our initiatives serve to reinforce and continuously upgrade our economy’s attributes, as we work towards building an even stronger future one, based on environmental, social, and corporate governance models and investments. We have achieved steady progress in this regard and demonstrated the extent of our diversification initiatives with our strategic ecosystem of partners.”
The Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) of ADDED, as the market regulator and enabler, has launched many initiatives alongside strategic partners to ensure that industrial growth is enhanced through a smart and circular economy. In addition to pushing for CECs, for instance, the IDB launched in 2019 the Electric Tariff Incentive Programme (ETIP) to help industrial facilities boost productivity levels via more efficient use of energy. ETIP achieved 14% productivity growth by participating industrial facilities, with a return on the investments of 25%. Forty-nine industrial facilities have received the ETIP certificate in 2021 and the number continues to grow throughout 2022.
Mr. Othman Al Ali, Chief Executive Officer of EWEC, said: “The new strategic partnership with ADDED is a significant opportunity to enhance Abu Dhabi’s economic competitiveness with sustainability at its core. Abu Dhabi’s CEC scheme has already shown the significant impact it can have in helping companies decarbonise their energy consumption and take tangible action on climate change. With this new innovative partnership, we can further ensure that all entities in the industrial sector can participate in the scheme, helping consolidate Abu Dhabi’s position as an economic leader, benefiting our country and enabling the UAE to meet its net zero goals.”
EWEC is playing a key role for Abu Dhabi’s CECs scheme, acting as a Single Registrant and auction operator to establish a primary market for this new instrument. EWEC has signed strategic clean energy partnerships with entities across energy, real estate, healthcare, and events sectors including Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Aldar Properties, the World Future Energy Summit, and the World Utilities Congress.
