Abu Dhabi, UAE: The fourth edition of the Sustainable Buildings & RetrofitTech Abu Dhabi Summit took place this week, with over 350 high-level decision makers from the energy efficiency, sustainability and retrofitting sectors in attendance for the two-day event.
The Summit, which is hosted by Abu Dhabi Department of Energy and Abu Dhabi Energy Services (ADES), a subsidiary of TAQA Group, took place under the theme ‘Greening the Built Environment’.
Proceedings opened with an opening keynote on Abu Dhabi’s Environment Vision 2030 by Eng. Ahmed Al Falasi, Acting Executive Director – Energy Efficiency, Abu Dhabi Department of Energy (DoE), touching on the importance of Abu Dhabi’s Demand Side Management and Energy Rationalisation Strategy 2030, which targets a 22% reduction in electricity consumption and a 32% reduction in water consumption by 2030. Eng. Al Falasi highlighted that since the previous edition of the Summit, Abu Dhabi DoE has entered into a partnership with ADES to retrofit 39 government buildings, a collaboration which aims to save 35GWh of electricity by early 2025. This includes a unified agreement framework setting out the roles and responsibilities of the government and ADES.
This was followed by a presentation on accelerating building retrofit initiatives in Abu Dhabi and beyond, by Moutaz Bakri Abdalla, Head of Project Development at ADES, which looked at the retrofit program ADES has developed for government buildings in Abu Dhabi, as well as its approach to collaboration with stakeholders.
Abdalla commented: “The building retrofit programme for government entities will focus on the development and implementation of energy conservation measures including creation of critical assets and infrastructure in government facilities, including ongoing support for measuring and reporting savings. In this way we will help entities meet their short- and long-term goals and prepare buildings for future energy challenges.”
Later in the first morning, Summit participants heard insights from ENOVA on incorporating AI-powered digital solutions to enhance energy efficiency, Ramboll on developing sustainability-centred retrofitting strategies, and the Department of Education and Knowledge on evaluating the impact of HVAC systems for improved building operations from, as well as a panel session on evaluating the most energy intensive components of buildings from a facilities management perspective.
The focus for the second day was a workshop on retrofit in government, which provided a deep dive into government requirements and mandate in building retrofit, the built environment within Abu Dhabi’s demand-side management strategy, behavioural change and awareness in the building retrofit programme, and building retrofit policies for government entities.
Earlier sessions on the second day considered integrating responsible AI into facilities, making cities smart and sustainable by implementing energy efficiency standards, and bringing sustainability into infrastructure projects.
The Summit is organised by Advanced Conferences & Meetings (ACM). The summit’s Strategic Partner is Etihad Water & Electricity, and the Silver Sponsor is Enova. Other innovative technology and solution providers including DCServe, Ledvance, Al-Futtaim engineering and technologies, connect ME, Klima Global, Intelli-Hood, Netix-Teknoware, Secure, PlanRadar, facilio, Sylvania, Sharaf DG Energy, Elmec, and RGS HVAC Services also supporting the initiative.