Hatem Saeed Al Amoudi’s Vision for Sustainable Building in the UAE

Hatem Saeed Al Amoudi shines forth as the fine, bold architect of change that the UAE wants to alter its course in the future regarding building performance and sustainability. At Dubai Future Foundation- DFF-where he serves as Head of Labs, Al Amoudi is on the helm in this revolution of energy management and smart building solutions which the world so desperately needs. With high energy prices and environmental sustainability a rapidly central theme among GCC states, there is now increasing impetus to adopt energy-efficient practices. This has gathered further pace in recent times with the COP21 summit in Paris, but the UAE has taken serious steps toward green building and sustainability in the most recent past. Dubai, for one, has been at the forefront of such initiatives through its regulations and incentives targeted at ensuring eco-friendly construction.

This also includes the Dubai Municipality-devised Al Sa’fat green rating system, which works towards making Dubai’s buildings more sustainable to fall in line with the Dubai Plan 2021 vision of a smart and sustainable city. In fact, the system may even link rental prices to green building ratings, which in a way forces developers and property owners to take up the mantle of energy efficiency.

This is where Energy Solutions Group International, founded by Al Amoudi in 2013, comes into the fore. ESGI has rapidly established itself at the head in optimizing energy usage of both commercial and residential buildings. In a nutshell, the mission of the company is to take the mystery out of energy efficiency and make effective and affordable solutions. First and foremost, Al Amoudi began his journey with a focus on energy automation systems for smart homes. This, in turn, evolved into integrated building management systems and then into the development of ESGI itself. Its largest early client, Etihad Airways, had approached ESGI initially to develop global standards for environmental controls in its luxury lounges. It was that collaboration which would set the stage for what innovations ESGI would provide for the future.

At the heart of ESGI’s operations is a state-of-the-art 24/7 command center in Dubai. From this facility, it allows for real-time monitoring of client energy performance to provide actionable insights into how buildings are consuming their energy. The dashboards within the command center present an elaborative review of the energy use, allowing clients to identify inefficiencies and enable them to make informed decisions.

Al Amoudi speaks of how vital the visual display of energy consumption is:. Instead of promising savings, ESGI provides efficiency for its clients through actual data review. This typically tends to drive more change, since their energy usage patterns are right in front of them. One of the major milestones for ESGI was working with Dell on the Dell Edge Gateways for IoT. This allows seamless communications between various building systems and provides valuable data to optimize. In fact, with the addition of this technology, ESGI can further enhance their building management systems to provide clients with the maximum levels of control and efficiency.

This potential with the Gateway was showcased with a test project recently completed at a Dubai shopping mall. This is a highly inefficient mall with an extremely sophisticated BMS, but several redundancies as well as recommendations for improvements derived from the integration done by ESGI could have the potential of saving 2.45 million dollars per annum. This will go to prove that cutting-edge technology plays an important role in energy management today.

With more and more green initiatives being embraced by the UAE, greater is the requirement for effective regulation and enforcement. Al Amoudi, along with ESGI’s COO Andrew Ward and Director Paul Warren, called for a regulatory framework that comprises independent measurement and verification bodies. They believed financial incentives that are directly related to energy performance, such as not only rebates but adjustments in rents or municipality fees, would accelerate the energy efficiency mechanism.

Al Amoudi said that ESGI had indeed set up a good platform for energy efficiency in the UAE but that further accomplishment in terms of industry-wide change needed to be dictated and shaped by government action. His ultimate vision is one where energy efficiency is not an option but part of how buildings are designed and operated.