Milan/Dubai: The team putting together the smart electrical grid for Milan’s Expo 2015 is hoping they might be able to bring it to Dubai for Expo 2020, according to a key figure in the Italian city’s preparations.
Expo 2015 cleared an important technical hurdle last week, when Siemens unveiled its Energy Management System (EMS) control room to the media and the company declared itself ready to migrate to the host site. The smart grid technology — completed in partnership with Italy’s largest power company Enel — will monitor and control electricity distribution to ensure the site uses as little power as possible during its six months of operation.
While construction of the Expo site itself is still far from complete, Siemens’ key behind-the-scenes technology is now ready to go live. And, with the Milan Expo not due to open its doors until May 1 next year, Siemens Italy CEO and president Federico Golla is keen for Dubai’s Expo 2020 organisers to tap into his team’s expertise.
“I think Dubai should and will be in touch with our organisation. We are more than willing as a company — seeing as we are based everywhere in the world and for us the emirates is an important business area — to co-operate with them to tell them what can work for them,” he told Gulf News after cutting the ribbon at the control room.
“We did the same with China when we started to look at the Shanghai event, which took place five years ago. The world is small now, so you can easily take something from east and west and update it for your needs.”
The control room will allow staff to check all devices in the Expo’s energy distribution infrastructure and enable them to perform remote tasks and alert others to possible faults.
And, with the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy aiming to cut energy consumption by 30 per cent by 2030, the Expo control room at Siemens’ Milan headquarters — which is similar to the system Siemens already operates at the city’s impressive new Porta Nuova district — could be of great interest to the emirate.
“The traditional way to use energy is to produce it, transport it, use it and that’s it — from A to B, nothing more. No technology, no control in terms of intelligence,” Golla explained. “Today you have inputs and outputs every minute. You have cars producing energy, you have buildings, you have power plants, all kinds of energy, and this is leading us to a big risk — blackouts.
“A blackout is a disaster because it’s something where the technology cannot do anything. What the technology on the Smart Grid is about is controlling, measuring, balancing. And again it’s all about data, IT and the probability to run the system in an efficient way.
“Every year we, as a planet, are consuming 50 per cent more energy than we need. In the long run, if every year we consume 1.5 times the resources of the planet, that will be us finished. It’s not only for the atmosphere, for C02, it’s for life.”
Some 20 million people are expected to visit the Milan Expo site between May and October next year and Golla is looking forward to seeing the Smart Grid succeed and leave a legacy.
“[The technology] is a pilot because the testing will be replicated and our task is to cover the surface of Italy and to have this working in many different places. This is relevant for us, that’s why we did the investment with Enel — to make sure we have a technical footprint and that the Expo will be an image for business,” he said.
“We will wait for the 20 million people to come from many corners of the world. It should be good for us to give them a good image not only of the company, but also the country, which deserves something more than is sometimes seen.”
Expo 2020 will run from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021 at a site near Dubai World Central. It is expected to attract 25 million visitors.
