18
July
Desert-Tested Automation: Designing BMS and PLCs for Harsh Middle Eastern Environments
When a system fails in a glass-panelled tower in Dubai or a logistics warehouse in Riyadh, it's rarely because the tech wasn’t smart enough. More often, it’s because the system wasn’t tough enough.
That’s the harsh truth of automation in the Middle East. While Building Management Systems (BMS) and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) have become essential for energy efficiency, operational control and sustainability, designing them for this region demands more than just software sophistication. It calls for grit. It calls for desert-tested resilience.
Because here, technology isn’t just battling complexity. It’s battling the climate.
Across the Gulf, temperatures regularly touch 50°C in summer. Add to that pervasive dust, corrosive salt-laden winds near the coast, power fluctuations and sandstorms that don’t check the maintenance schedule. It’s a cocktail of conditions that can degrade sensors, short circuits and compromise the reliability of automation systems.
In 2024, Dubai Municipality reported that 28% of system faults in older smart buildings were attributed not to software errors, but to environmental degradation of hardware; dust choking sensors, humidity corroding components and heat pushing processors past thermal limits. These aren’t edge cases. They’re everyday scenarios in the GCC.
That’s why adapting automation to the environment is a design imperative.
Building for the Climate, Not in Spite of It
1. Thermal Management Has to Come First Designers need to assume that enclosures will operate in ambient temperatures exceeding 55°C, especially in non-air-conditioned spaces like rooftops or remote substations. This means not only selecting industrial-grade components but ensuring thermal dissipation through passive ventilation, reflective coatings, and intelligent placement. High ambient heat accelerates equipment ageing. A component rated for ten years in temperate conditions might survive only three in the Gulf if not properly protected.
2. Dust and Sand: The Silent Killers Fine desert dust is not just a cleaning issue, it’s an electrical hazard. It clogs cooling vents, insulates heat inside panels, and acts as a conductive layer that can cause tracking failures. Sealed enclosures with a minimum IP65 rating are now a regional standard. In facilities like Ras Al Khaimah's industrial zones, maintenance teams use pressure-tested housings and deploy positive air pressure cabinets to keep particulates out. Some local integrators have even started using hydrophobic coatings on sensors to reduce adhesion of dust and humidity. Smart, simple, and built for the region.
3. Humidity, Salinity and the Coastal Effect In cities like Jeddah and Abu Dhabi, it's not just heat - it’s the salt in the air. Corrosion is a major factor in coastal automation failure. According to a 2023 Aramco maintenance report, nearly 35% of outdoor junction box failures were due to salt-induced corrosion. Solutions? Corrosion-resistant materials like stainless steel or treated aluminium for enclosures, and conformal coatings on PCBs. Also, cable gland sealing and gasket care are more than technicalities, they’re life-extenders.
While international benchmarks like IEC 61131 for PLCs and ISO 16484 for BMS are a starting point, regional leaders are now blending global standards with on-ground adaptations.
Take DEWA’s (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority) specifications: they now require all control systems in exposed environments to demonstrate compliance not just to electrical safety, but also to environmental durability. Similarly, NEOM’s smart infrastructure guidelines prioritize modular, field-serviceable systems that are climate-resilient by design.
In Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Project, automation was designed to work even with infrequent human intervention. That means automated diagnostics, sensor redundancy and edge computing systems that continue to operate offline when connectivity falters.
Automation often fails because teams don’t know how to maintain or adapt them. In the Gulf, where talent is diverse and turnover can be high, intuitive user interfaces, local-language support and simple visual diagnostics aren’t nice extras. They’re operational necessities.
The best systems don’t just survive the environment, they also speak the language of the people who use them.
The goal isn’t to tame the desert but to work with it.
Designing systems that embrace the region’s realities - heat, dust, salinity and human variability - is what separates a good BMS or PLC from one that becomes a long-term asset.
As we build toward more sustainable, intelligent and automated infrastructures across the Middle East, the lesson is simple: Innovation that lasts here runs on resilience.
For more information, visit PMO Global.