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Masdar City to be scaled back
- 14 years ago (2010-10-11)
- Junior Isles
The government of Abu Dhabi is scaling back its plans for an ambitious clean-energy city as part of a wide-ranging review of the $22 billion project.
The state company behind Masdar City said the project will not be completed until at least 2020 – four years after the original deadline – and that work could run until 2025.
The Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. known as Masdar has backed away from the original plans to power the city solely by renewable power produced on site to make the city 100 per cent carbon neutral.
Solar arrays were originally expected to provide the bulk of Masdar City's power. Masdar now says it is exploring a range of clean energy sources for the city, including geothermal energy and solar thermal cooling, and that it will also consider buying renewable power from other locations.
Officials characterised the changes as part of an ongoing learning process in implementing new research and technologies as they become available.
The changes mark the biggest shift in Masdar's strategy since the project was announced in 2006.
"As the construction phase progresses, we will be continually learning, adjusting and moving forward toward our vision for Masdar City. As technology and the market evolves so will our plan," said Masdar CEO Sultan Al Jaber. "The key is to be flexible and adaptable rather than rigid and dogmatic."
Plans for a network of personal podcars that would shuttle tens of thousands of Masdar City residents and visitors around the 6 km
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development are also being scaled back. The "personal rapid transit" podcars, which would travel on fixed tracks, were meant to replace personal vehicles in a city that promised to be entirely car-free.
Masdar now says the podcar system will be limited to an "ongoing pilot project," and that other types of electric vehicles may be allowed in the future.
Al-Jaber said in June that the overall aims of the project were not being scaled back amid reports that the company had shed jobs and was looking to cut costs.
Masdar City is at the heart of efforts by Abu Dhabi, one of the world's biggest exporters of oil, to position itself as a world leader in renewable energy. The emirate is investing heavily in solar and nuclear power, and was picked last year as the home of the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The United Arab Emirates has the world's largest ecological footprint per capita, according to a World Wildlife Fund report.
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