Covering 6 square kilometers, and costing US$22 billion, Masdar City will eventually house 50,000 people, and host 1,500 primarily environmentally-friendly businesses. Masdar City is being built by Masdar – the Abu Dhabi ‘Future Energy company which aims to be become a world leader in renewables.
Features of Masdar City
Within Masdar City, cars will be banned. People will be transported around by a mass transit system. With its location in the scorching hot desert, and no air-conditioned cars to ferry people around from door to door, the city has been designed with long narrow shaded streets through which breezes blow, and a tall perimeter wall has been constructed to shade the city from the hot desert winds. Traditional Gulf wind towers will produce energy free ‘air-conditioning’ and ventilation to keep the interiors of buildings cool.
Powering Masdar City
Masdar City will be self-sufficient in renewable power. A total of 130MW of PV solar panels are to be installed on roof tops and at a dedicated solar power plant. Outside the perimeter wall, 20MW of wind turbine capacity will be installed. Later on solar and wind power will be supplemented by geothermal power and what will be the world’s largest hydrogen power plant. Masdar City is being designed to be highly energy efficient, using as little as 25% of the power of a typical city of the same size.
Water for Masdar City
Being located in the middle of the desert, providing Masdar City with water is one of the most difficult tasks. A desalination plant powered by solar energy will be used to get potable water from seawater. After this water has been used, it will be collected and processed so that it can be used as greywater for irrigation and so on.
Waste in Masdar City
In order to become a zero waste city, Masdar City will use waste incineration (which is also an additional power source), recycle or reuse plastics and metals etc, and food and other biological waste will be composted to make fertilizers and rich soils for growing crops to feed the city.
For more Information
Click here to visit the official Masdar City website.