DEWA Is Gifting Itself A Pretty Cool Thing For Its 60th Birthday

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority will turn 60 in 2019, but it already has its birthday gift sorted.

The public utility is gifting itself a new headquarters called Al Sheraa (which means ‘the sail’ in Arabic) that’s going to be fully solar-powered. And wait, there’s more to this building. Once completed, it is expected to be the world’s largest and tallest net-zero energy building. The design was exhibited during the Dubai Solar Show on Tuesday.

Here are some interesting things to know about the building:

Three times larger than the DEWA Sustainable Building in Al Quoz, it will have six storeys on one side and many more on the other side with a ‘sail’ at an inclination of 25 degrees. It will hold 16,500 sq m of solar panels which will act as a shade source for the building. It will also be designed to have an Energy Utilisation Intensity of 70 kWh/sq m per year (basically a figure which is five times less than normal buildings). However the building will cost 15% to 20% more than a building of similar quality because of the efficiency systems DEWA will be introducing.