UTT Powers Up Abu Dhabi's Smart City Development with Huawei UPS

Located on an island in the Arabian Gulf, Abu Dhabi — the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — was once heavily oil-dependent. The city has, however, transformed itself and today stands as a leading tourist destination, offering a high standard of living with a highly developed transportation network and a focus on developing science and technology. And to remain on the cutting-edge, the city has now shifted its priority to Smart City development.

One such Smart City initiative — Masdar City — was launched ten years ago. Just a short drive from Abu Dhabi International Airport, the goal is to develop the area into a high-tech hub for companies across the world. Indeed, on the 2019 Smart City Index, published by the Institute for Management Development (IMD), Abu Dhabi ranks second in the Middle East, only slightly behind its northern neighbor, Dubai. Globally, Abu Dhabi sits at number 56, ahead of international metropolises such as Tokyo and Osaka, remarkably.

In 2019, the first Abu Dhabi Smart City Summit was held. A milestone in the city's development, it served as a launch pad for Smart City construction that had real impact on people's lives, delivering ever higher standards in terms of reliability and energy efficiency.

Reliable Power for Smart Homes

Integral to any Smart City, smart homes directly impact the daily lives of residents — obviously enough — allowing them to experience the benefits of intelligence, firsthand.

Ubiquitous Telecommunications Technology (UTT) — a provider of smart home solutions and smart centralized Building Management Systems (BMSs) — is committed to making the Smart City idea a reality for customers across the country. While the company is involved in multiple Smart City projects in Abu Dhabi, the AI Reem Island project — spanning six towers and 1272 apartments — is one of the most ambitious. Tailored to middle class customers, the project was divided into two phases and, in each phase, two sets of physically isolated security access control networks and Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) networks were required. The project also needed a range of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) devices to support data communication, data storage, and data processing. To ensure reliable power supply for all these devices, UTT also had a very clear idea of what it required from its Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system.

For any UPS system reliability is key, of course. UTT wanted carrier-level standards, to ensure critical loads even for unstable power grids, alongside a low environmental impact and high efficiency. It also wanted to have both local and remote management systems that were easy to use.

Building a Reliable Energy Base

To help realize the UAE government's goal and vision — to deliver smart services and experiences through cutting-edge technologies, accelerate Smart City construction, and build a smart Abu Dhabi — UTT set out to find the most reliable power supply solution it could. After thoroughly testing and verifying a wide array of systems, the company ultimately settled on Huawei's UPS2000-G solution, in order to build a solid and reliable energy foundation for their smart home solution.

As a leading global ICT provider, Huawei has a proven track record of delivering reliable power supply solutions and UPS2000-G is a carrier-class UPS system with high-level design standards, ensuring zero interruptions of the power supply for key devices. It also beats competitors in a range of specifications, from input voltage and surge protection — 80–280 V compared with 100–280 V, and 6 kV/5 kA against 4 kV/2 kA — to overload capability, with a maximum of 150%.

UPS2000-G also offers astonishingly high efficiency of 95% — a figure that reaches 98% in eco mode — combined with low power consumption. As such, it's the first UPS in the industry to pass ENERGY STAR certification, with an average output efficiency 5% higher than the certification standard.

In terms of online and remote management, all UPSs are connected to a unified management platform, significantly simplifying user interface operations as well as device maintenance.

UTT's Experience

"We are always pleasantly surprised by Huawei every time we work together. We are impressed with the performance of UPS2000-G since it has gone live. I believe it won't be long before UTT and Huawei will have another opportunity to work together. As long as Abu Dhabi continues to pursue Smart City development, there will be opportunities for our two companies to cooperate. We expect Huawei to continue to provide innovative technologies, products, and smart solutions, and continue working with UTT to contribute to Abu Dhabi's Smart City construction," commented Adnan Sokolija, Manager of Smart City Infrastructure at UTT.