Al Sa'fat metering and air quality, from design into operation
Al Sa'fat is Dubai Municipality's green building system. Every new building must reach Silver Sa'fa, which includes electricity, cooling and water metering, and some existing buildings must test indoor air. Aqueduct reads those meters and sensors and keeps the records.
Who it applies to
Since 19 October 2020, Al Sa'fat has replaced the Dubai Green Building Regulations. All new buildings, from villas to commercial and public buildings, must obtain Silver Sa'fa. Golden and Platinum Sa'fa are voluntary. The current text is the second edition, January 2023.
Some clauses reach existing buildings too: indoor air quality testing for hotels, malls, schools, healthcare and government buildings, and re-commissioning for large cooling plants.
Clauses that need measured data
Clause numbers from Al Sa'fat, Dubai Green Building System, second edition. Dubai Municipality approves compliance.
| Requirement | What it asks for | Data Aqueduct supplies |
|---|---|---|
| 503.03, electricity metering | Whole-building electricity demand and consumption metered and recorded. | Main and sub-meter interval data by building and floor. |
| 503.04, air conditioning metering | Chilled water metered where a chiller plant or district cooling serves several consumers. | BTU meters per consumer, read over Modbus or M-Bus. |
| 503.05, CCMS | A central control and monitoring system for buildings with 1 MW of cooling or 5,000 m2 or more. | BMS and meter data on one model, with faults and trends. |
| 602.01, water metering | DEWA-approved meters, sub-meters on major uses and tenancies, real time profiling and no run-hour virtual meters; records kept five years. | Water sub-meters per use and tenant in a live balance, with five-year history. |
| 401.07, IAQ in existing buildings | Testing against limits including CO2 below 800 ppm, TVOC below 300 micrograms/m3 and formaldehyde below 0.08 ppm. | Continuous CO2, TVOC and particulate readings per zone between tests. |
| 503.02, re-commissioning | Existing buildings with 2 MW or more of cooling re-commissioned at least every five years. | Plant performance trends that show where re-commissioning is due. |
Related standards
Sources2 references cited on this page
sites in 21 countries run on Aqueduct.
and 9 clinics in one of India’s top hospital chains.
US airport running water intelligence on Aqueduct.
of commercial real estate under Aqueduct.
FMCG manufacturing campus.
operations run on Aqueduct.
Related
Common questions
No, not in the current second edition. The levels are Silver Sa'fa, which every new building must reach, and the voluntary Golden and Platinum Sa'fa, which add requirements on top of it.
Consumption per major use and tenancy over time, kept for five years. Interval data from physical meters also makes leaks visible within hours, which estimates from pump run hours cannot.
The clause asks for metering integrated with the BMS or CCMS. Aqueduct reads wired and LoRaWAN meters and brings them into one model, subject to DEWA approval of the meter itself.
Under clause 401.07, hotels, malls, schools, healthcare and government buildings test indoor air against set limits. Between those tests, aQ AirSafe keeps a continuous indoor air record for each zone, so a single result can be checked against months of readings. See IAQ monitoring.
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