Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The 7 km
2
site selected is near the airport and about 17 km from the city of
Abu Dhabi, and were it not in the desert, it would be classified as a 'green-
field' site. The fundamentals of the plan have been agreed, ground has been
broken and phase one is underway. Initially, more than $300 million of pro-
curement is in place, and an additional $1 billion was expected to be commit-
ted by the end of 2009. The city was due to be built in 7 years, at a total cost of
$22 billion. The first $4 billion of this was coming from the Masdar Initiative,
with the remaining $18 billion being raised through direct investments and
other financial instruments. In 2013, the Abu Dhabi government has com-
mitted $15 billion to Masdar city. Moreover, more than $1 billion of equity
has been invested across renewable energy projects with a total value of over
$6.9 billion [106].
Sir Norman Foster, the British architect, is behind the design of the city,
and detailed planning and preparation has been done by a range of inter-
national consultants and experts, including Pooran Desai from BioRegional,
the UK consultancy WSP, Canada and United States-based CH2M Hill.
2.6.1.2.1 Building Design
Much of the design will adopt local, vernacular architectural principles,
but this will also be mixed with a lot of cutting edge technology, some of it
still in the experimental phase. The city will incorporate traditional medi-
nas, souks and wind towers and will make use of open, public squares and
narrow shaded walkways to connect homes, schools, restaurants and shops.
The buildings themselves will then adopt a wide range of passive measures,
and they should consume well under a quarter of the energy used by com-
parable buildings elsewhere in the region.
2.6.1.2.2 Transportation
There will be no cars in Masdar City—indeed, no internal combustion
engines of any type. Instead, there will be a network of electric trams (a light
rail transit or LRT system, which will also link to the planned Abu Dhabi
LRT system) and smaller, 'personal rapid transit' vehicles, effectively an
automatic, driverless system of electric taxis controlled by a central com-
puter. These will be programmed so that, once occupied, the passenger has
privacy and no other passenger can board along the route.
2.6.1.2.3 Renewable Energy
All the energy used in Masdar will be renewably generated, not only the
electrical power but also that for heating, cooling and transport. The bulk
of this is likely to come from one solar form or another. There will be power
generation for a smart grid from solar thermal power and concentrating
PV and also distributed PV throughout the city. The wind resource in Abu
Dhabi is generally poor and will contribute little to the overall mix, but
some geothermal and waste-to-energy, particularly from bio waste, are also
likely to be significant contributors.
