UAE’s efforts to ‘go green’ are insufficient, but that the introduction of certain laws already in place in Europe could solve its energy shortages, said an expert from leading energy services provider Techem.

“One of the biggest challenges now facing this region is to meet its rising demand for energy usage, which is set to reach unsustainable levels over the next decade,” said Hans Altmann, Techem’s regional manager for the Mena region, speaking at a recent gathering of energy consultants and industry professionals.

“While the UAE is slowly heading in the right direction, the ‘green’ initiatives taken so far are not enough and the country must do more to cut back on its consumption by introducing a comprehensive legal framework governing metering practices, so that everyone pays exactly for what they use,” he added.

The UAE is due to issue regulations that will require developers to meet certain minimum environmental standards in both new and existing buildings. These will go further than other systems worldwide, which are mostly voluntary, but Altmann emphasised that they must focus on measures to cut energy usage.

“Due to the 1970s oil crisis, Europe has already faced similar problems to those the UAE is dealing with today, in terms of energy shortages,” Altmann continued.

“As a result, many countries in Europe introduced comprehensive legislation to regulate energy cost allocation practices, obligating energy to be charged on an actual consumption basis.

“This has led to reductions of around 25 per cent in energy usage and has proved that when people are charged for what they consume, they naturally become more prudent. Therefore, as well as helping to conserve valuable resources, reducing consumption saves money.”

Whereas in Europe the demand for energy is mainly for heating buildings, the UAE’s principal cause of usage is for air conditioning. This has regularly reached unsustainable levels, leaving some of the Northern Emirates unable to meet peak summer demand and leading to power cuts across the region.

Currently, only a small number of cooling meters are installed in buildings throughout the UAE, while most buildings are not equipped with any measuring devices for air conditioning.

As a result, housing administrators are free to determine how residents should be charged, with many choosing to levy flat service fees as opposed to allocating costs on a consumption basis.

“This means that tenants often end up paying more for energy than they would do if they were billed separately for their individual usage,” Altmann continued. “The present system is inherently unfair and leads to large amounts of unnecessary waste.”

Altmann emphasised that Techem’s experience in over 20 countries has shown that consumption-based cost allocation is already a well-established practice in many parts of the world.

“Therefore, the UAE only needs to follow these countries’ lead; it is not necessary to invent new methods for dealing with excessive energy use,” he said.

“Over time, financial incentives alone should lead tenants to be charged on a consumption basis, but a legal framework would greatly help to accelerate the situation. If the UAE is really serious about ‘going green’ and solving its energy problems, it must learn the lessons from Europe and introduce the relevant legislation to assist the market and cut energy consumption,” Altmann concluded. – TradeArabia News Service