Dewa posts 2014 profit rise, to repay $1bn bond in April

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) will use its own cash to repay a $1 billion bond maturing in April, the company said on Tuesday as it reported a 14.8 per cent increase in 2014 profit.

Dubai's only utility also said it would distribute a cash dividend for the year of Dh500 million ($136.1 million) to the government, in line with the figure paid in 2013.

State-owned Dewa made a net profit attributable to shareholders of Dh5.36 billion in 2014, up from Dh4.67 billion in the previous year, the company said in a filing to Nasdaq Dubai, where it has debt instruments listed.

Dewa's customer base grew four per cent in 2014, while the amount of electricity and water it dispatched to customers increased 5.75 per cent and 6.04 per cent respectively, it said in a separate filing.

Cash available to the firm rose to Dh3.54 billion at the end of 2014 from Dh1.29 billion a year earlier.

Dewa said it had built up sufficient cash to repay a $1 billion bond, originally issued in 2010, when it comes due in April.

Dh52bn net savings from new energy plan

As part of its initiative for a greener economy and sustainable development, Dewa has launched a new programme which will increase its revenues to Dh82 billion and net saving of Dh52 billion, said a senior official.

"Dewa has launched an operational plan to reduce energy demand by 30 per cent, including eight major programmes: specifications and regulations of green buildings, retrofitting of existing buildings, districts' central cooling, raise standards and efficiency of equipment and lighting, reusing treated water for irrigation, the efficiency of external lighting, loads management. The incremental costs of this strategic project would be almost Dh30 billion, while revenues will reach about Dh82 billion with net savings of up to Dh52 billion, which is an excellent economic return," said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice-Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, MD and CEO of Dewa and Chairman of The Organizing Committee for the World Green Economy Summit.

In December 2014, Dewa approved a total budget of Dh22.873 billion for 2015, up from Dh20.560 billion in 2014. Its operational budget for 2015 is Dh13.465 billion compared to Dh13.151 billion in the previous year.

Dewa will host the second World Green Economy Summit (WGES) 2015 on April 22-23 2015 under the theme "Global Partnerships, Sustainable Future".

"We have been developing strategies to promote sustainable development and green initiatives and partnerships, aiming to encourage innovation within key national sectors like renewable energy with the purpose of making our country a global hub for green economy. This is also a result of Dubai Declaration announced last year to make Dubai a capital of green economy and a role model on both regional and international levels," Al Tayer said.

"Today, we expand our relentless efforts to achieve our goals of green economy and sustainable development. We previously set ourselves the goal of ensuring that 7 per cent of our energy requirements were met by renewables by 2020. At the start of this year, we committed ourselves to raise our target to 15 per cent by 2030. Dewa also achieved great success in the low cost of production of photovoltaic energy according to the independent producer system implemented in the tender for the second project of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, and has doubled the capacity of production from 100 megawatts to 200 megawatts to run in 2017 with an independent producer system," he said.

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