Ministry of Environment & Water, UAE

The establishment of the Ministry of Environment and Water (MOEW) came in the context of the commitment of the United Arab Emirates to developing sustainable environment and the nation’s vision, as a response to many of the developments that have occurred on the national and global levels in the previous years. The UAE has made the environmental issue as one of the leading concerns for it is considered as a key input for achieving sustainable development. MOEW was established in February 2006, replacing the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, taking charge of all its powers and affairs. The Federal Environment Agency and the General Secretariat of Municipalities, had their functions and authorities transferred to within the Ministry’s mandate.

Main Objectives:

• Enhance the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) to ensure sustainability

• Enhance environmental sustainability

• Prevention of agricultural pests and Avian Influenza

• Enhance food safety and the sustainability of the local production

• Ensure that administrative services is provided in accordance with standards of quality, efficiency and transparency

United Arab Emirates

Ministry Of Environment & Water

    Dubai has long been troubled by the issue of water resources. Tatung leveraged its abundant solar resource and high humidity in solving water irrigation issues. Solar energy is used for the atmospheric water generator to extract atmospheric water for daily use or agricultural irrigation. The system also collects data from each atmospheric water generator, including the storage volume and equipment condition, so that the water allocation may be adjusted in advance for farmland irrigation, and any equipment damage can be immediately detected and handled promptly.

    Atmospheric water generator is shown in Figure 1:


                   Figure 1.

    The generator collects water in the air, and transfers it to drinking water. The PV system supplies it with solar energy and can also be used to monitor the storage of different solar panels, as shown in Figure 2:


Figure 2.

    Since the agricultural irrigation in Dubai has long been dependent on groundwater and sea water desalination, the surrounding marine ecosystem has been increasingly affected by its impact. Furthermore, with issues of continuous irrigation and intensive farming, some farmlands could no longer be cultivated due to the following waterlogging and desalination.

    In search of other water resources, Dubai has been aggressively dedicated to the development of energy resource, water resource and agriculture. With the support from Dubai government, Tatung integrates both solar power and the atmosphere water generator by means of the ideal condition in local sunlight and humidity.

    The water it produces serves not only for the use of agricultural irrigation (greenhouse), but also for households or industry. The PV system appears to be an excellent choice in the alternative energy development plan in the Middle Eastern. In the Ras Alkhaimah Agriculture Research Center, which is established by Ministry of Environment and Water, Tatung built a set of desert PV system (20KW) and an Atmospheric water generator, which successfully store the energy during daylight and produce water at nighttime.

    Ministry of Environment and Water in Dubai looks highly on this technical cooperation program and therefore provided full assistance in site construction and document applications. Regarding that the installation of the system is held in summer, the team were required to be exposed to the harsh environment with high temperature of 40 ~ 45 ̊C and no shades around the working area but the distant Ral Alkhaimah Research Center to rest.

    The weather condition has put a big difficult challenge to the construction; yet, Tatung’s team still worked closely together with local team to complete the construction of this PV system and atmospheric water generator demonstration site.

Smart PV atmospheric Water Generator-1


Smart PV atmospheric Water Generator-2