More than 60,000 power industry professionals from around the world are expected to attend Middle East Electricity 2019, the 44th edition of the region’s leading event for the power industry, opening in Dubai, UAE, on March 5.

The power battalion are exhibiting, visiting, and speaking at conferences and workshops at the three-day event, which runs until March 7 at Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC).

When the curtain rises on the show, which spans 14 exhibition halls, industry professionals will discover more than 1,600 leading manufacturers and suppliers from all continents ready to promote a multitude of disparate technology.

“From smart grids to bifacial solar panels and everything from generation to transmission, distribution and all touch points in between that are re-energising and recalibrating a sector on the tipping point of total transformation - MEE 2019 has it all,” explained Claudia Konieczna, exhibition director of Informa Industrial Group, which organises MEE.

Across all five of Middle East Electricity 2019’s dedicated sectors - power generation, transmission and distribution, lighting, solar, and energy storage and management - disruptive forces will be in evidence as supply markets transform, technologies progress, industries converge, consumption patterns alter, environmental concerns grow and ‘prosumers’ – the new power consumer/producer –gain momentum.

“The industry is focused on discovering new business practices and technologies to address pressing issues of rising power demand, the need to control critical power costs and hasten the adoption of renewables to progress more sustainable business models. Every aspect of the change scenario is being explored at the exhibition and throughout its expansive knowledge programme- the outputs will be agenda-setting for the industry’s future,” added Konieczna.

The comprehensive MEE knowledge programme, which offers up to 94 hours of free educational events, includes a diverse range of professional education and training opportunities where attendees can learn about the latest technologies at exhibitor-led Technical Seminars and advance professionally with CPD accredited conferences

Boosting the programme this year is the pioneering, opening day conference focusing on IoT lighting – the first of its kind in the region – when experts from the Middle East, South America, Europe, India and the USA will probe the possible advances from leveraging IoT within the lighting sector and its ability to transform lifestyles. Smart street lighting is emerging as a key theme with speakers predicting widespread impact for the Mena region as the role of lighting evolves from merely illuminating highways to providing social, environmental and operational cost benefits.

“The lighting industry is in the midst of an incredible transition from systems with the sole purpose of providing illumination to systems that are at the centre of smart spaces. The industry has the potential to position itself at the centre of the “smart spaces” revolution as both a component and as a platform (i.e., an infrastructure for sensors and/or wireless connectivity,” said Dr Michael Rahaim, principal investigator, Ubiquitous Communications & Networking Lab (UCaN Lab), University of Massachusetts, Boston; assistant professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston.

“IoT is changing the way we think of adaptive lighting and the industry is primed to benefit from the growing number of smart devices in dense indoor spaces. The conference on IoT lighting at Middle East Electricity is the ideal platform to set the course for the industry,” added Dr Rahaim, who will address the conference on using the lighting infrastructure as a platform for data delivery to end-user devices, and enabling high-speed data transfer using visible light.

Additional conferences include; Intersolar, Electrical Energy Storage and the two-day ‘Revolutionising Power Generation’ agenda.  Speakers from 10 nations are lined up for the highlight power generation platform, which puts operations and maintenance of large-scale utilities, as well as independent power producers, into sharp focus.

Some of the biggest names and emerging players in the business will address the challenges, pinpoint growth opportunities and identify technologies and tactics needed to survive in a rapidly changing industry. The conference will also feature case studies from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and Ghana, as well as the unveiling of new research on preventative maintenance for international combustion engines using AI and big data.

Middle East Electricity is being held against a backdrop of a bullish forecast by the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation (Apicorp). The multilateral development bank has predicted the Mena region’s power capacity will expand by an average of 6.4 per cent per year by 2022, corresponding to additional capacity of 117 gigawatts and requiring $152 billion of investment in generation capacity. – TradeArabia News Service