Masdar City Brosur

The Global Centre of Future Energy

Masdar: The Reality of Future Energy

1

Masdar is a new kind of energy company that takes a holistic approach to renewable energy and clean technology. A commercial enterprise, Masdar operates through five integrated units, including an independent, research-driven graduate university, and seeks to become a leader in making renewable energy a real, viable business and Abu Dhabi a global centre of excellence in the renewable energy and clean technology category.

The company extends the UAE’s leadership in the energy sector into the future. Wholly owned by the Mubadala Development Company, Masdar integrates research, development and innovation with investment, sustainable production,

deployment and export, and is a supporting pillar of the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, which seeks to diversify the emirate’s economy as it transitions from a natural resource-based economy to one that is largely knowledge-based.

2

Masdar City and Abu Dhabi 2030 As one of Masdar’s integrated units, Masdar City makes a substantial contribution to the emirate’s economic development goals by attracting knowledge-economy companies and organisations to Abu Dhabi. As a cleantech cluster and test-bed of renewable energy and sustainable technologies, Masdar City not only helps diversify the emirate’s economic base by providing a home to a new industry, but it also provides an environment where new technologies are developed, commercialised and exported

3

Artist impression: Cultural district of Saadiyat Island, part of Abu Dhabi 2030 plan

4

Masdar City: The Global Centre of Future Energy

5

Masdar City is an emerging clean technology hub that positions companies located here at the heart of this global industry. A place where businesses can thrive and innovation can flourish, Masdar City is a modern Arabian city that, like its forerunners, is in tune with its surroundings. It offers a fertile environment that inspires creativity and growth to organisations operating in this strategic and dynamic sector.

This is a low-carbon, renewable energypowered city that not only embodies Abu Dhabi’s commitment to a sustainable future, but is also pioneering best practices in sustainable urban planning, design and development.

6

The Global Centre of Future Energy One of the most sustainable communities in the world, Masdar City is an emerging cleantech cluster like no other. It provides an exciting environment for cleantech companies, academic institutions, research facilities, financial firms and other organisations from around the world. They can network, collaborate, demonstrate, and develop new technologies and solutions.

With international leaders in this field located here, Masdar City offers the many benefits of industry clustering that are so important in an industry defined by rapid and continuous advancements in technology, and changing business and regulatory environments across the globe.

As such, Masdar City is a place where businesses can thrive and innovation can flourish. The city itself is an integrator of renewable energy and cleantech technologies as it seeks to solve the enormous challenges of managing and bringing together the many complex systems that will help Masdar City become one of the most sustainable cities on the planet.

But the city is also a desirable place to live.

Responsive to the culture and spirit of Abu Dhabi, the design of the city is inspired by the traditional architecture and urban planning of the region and includes numerous examples of where traditional design techniques help reduce energy consumption and improve the quality of the environment.

It is an urban community where the pedestrian is dominant. As a result, individuals will be able to live and work without the need for a personal vehicle.

Shaded walkways and narrow streets (enabled by a specially designed utility infrastructure) reduce glare and solar gain, and create pleasant and attractive outdoor spaces. The careful placement of the city’s orientation and street grid to sun and wind provides some degree of shading at street level throughout the day and minimises thermal gain. It also makes best use of the cooling night breezes and lessens the effect of hot daytime winds.

Traditional passive features such as shaded colonnades, window blinds and wind towers help to further improve comfort levels. Carefully planned landscape and water features aid in reducing temperatures, while enhancing the quality of the street experience. Foliated “green finger” linear parks will separate built-up areas, not only to capture and direct cool breezes into the heart of the city but also to reduce solar gain and provide cool pleasant oases.

The intelligent design of residential and commercial spaces reduces demand for artificial lighting and air conditioning, while all buildings will meet high sustainable building standards. The city has been designed around the individual and the family, and through the creation of fully integrated neighbourhoods orientated around public spaces and civic amenities, the city encourages the growth of communities and relationships.

7

A Working City Purpose built to serve the unique needs of the renewable energy and clean technology industry, Masdar City is a magnet for companies, financial capital and talent in this dynamic sector. Its design and infrastructure reinforce the many benefits of industry clustering, while providing the world-class office, sales, demonstration and research facilities required of the hightech, knowledge-intensive companies and organisations operating in this sector. Firms of all sizes, and at all stages of their development will benefit from locating in Masdar City.

Numerous global players in the renewable energy and sustainability industry have already recognised the benefits of locating in the city.

GE is an anchor partner that will build in the city its first ecomagination Centre focused on sustainable business solutions. Others partners include BASF, Bayer MaterialScience, Korea Technopark Association, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and Swiss Village Association. As well, the UAE successfully bid to host the secretariat of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which will be located in Masdar City.

Masdar City also offers an unmatched technology testing and demonstration platform; a unique graduate research university in the Masdar Institute; a community of like-minded students, academics and practitioners; and truly lowcarbon living and working.

The city also benefits from Abu Dhabi’s many advantages – including its location adjacent to three continents and surrounded by fast-growing emerging markets, a pro-business environment, supportive government policies, safety, and a modern, high quality of life. As a special economic zone, Masdar City offers organisations 100 percent foreign ownership, zero taxes, zero tariffs and a range of other benefits associated with special economic zone operations in the UAE.

8

Artist impression: View between the Knowledge Centre and a Lab building of the Masdar Institute

A Living City Masdar City is designed to provide a quality of life to rival that of any world-class city – while also being uncompromisingly sustainable. Why? Because one of Masdar City’s objectives is to demonstrate that environmentally responsible living is compatible with a commercially viable business model that offers people and organisations a desirable place to live and work.

A mixture of passive design elements, cuttingedge resource-management technologies (including smart appliances and smart metres) and a rigorous commitment to eliminating

resource leakages mean that the city’s dramatically reduced levels of energy and water consumption do not mean constrained lifestyles.

Also, planners have paid as much attention to the spaces between buildings as to the buildings themselves, resulting in a high-quality public realm. Restaurants and cafes will use the unique micro-climates that will be intrinsic to the city’s architecture and urban planning to create vibrant piazzas, avenues and terraces that will allow inhabitants and visitors to enjoy al fresco dining in comfortable surroundings.

9

As a result, life in Masdar City will be about enjoying the pleasant streetscape and cultural events with family and friends, and walking to work, shopping and eating out, secure in the knowledge that your environmental footprint is the smallest possible.

The city will provide retail oor space, carefully distributed to serve a cosmopolitan and multinational mix of residents and ofďŹ ce workers. Residential areas will be served by Neighbourhood Centres with supermarkets that will meet daily retail and service needs, all just a few minutes away by foot.

In order to maintain a sense of scale and rhythm within the city, some of the buildings are iconic and some of the buildings are subtle, but all of the buildings will be world class.

One of the most appealing aspects of the city is its design as a pedestrian-dominant city, meaning that it’s easy to move through the city, whether on the pleasantly landscaped walkways or via the Masdar City or wider Abu Dhabi public transportation options.

10

Masdar Institute Laboratory Building

A Learning City Masdar City is a university town that has been designed to foster innovative research, testing, development and commercialisation in the field of renewable energy and clean technologies.

Masdar Institute – the only graduate-level research-focused university dedicated to the study of science and engineering in the cleantech sector – will anchor the research component of this burgeoning cluster, while organisations drawn to the city will bring their own technologies and knowledge. The institute will generate applied research that will provide innovation “feedstock” to Masdar City, to other Masdar projects and to the wider UAE and world. In fact, less than a year after it had opened its doors, Masdar Institute had already filed seven patent applications.

As a university city and a unique test-bed for cleantech technologies, Masdar City will attract

pioneering companies in the field, alongside other companies and institutes that will be drawn to set up their own R&D labs.

Additionally, a wide range of companies will establish sales, marketing and demonstration facilities in the city to take advantage of its unrivalled platform to showcase technologies.

This will create a critical mass of expertise and cutting-edge technologies that will make Masdar City a global centre of knowledge and innovation in the cleantech sector.

The latest in renewable energy policy making, global best practices and state-of-the art technological expertise will be found here because the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) will be headquartered in the city.

It is already based in Abu Dhabi in a temporary office location.

11

A Sustainable City Reducing its environmental footprint is an ongoing process at Masdar City, which continually draws on the best, most cutting-edge technologies, equipment, systems and materials from across the globe. Its sustainability begins at the design stage, is maintained during construction and continues throughout the city’s operation.

Seven priority areas comprise the main focus for driving sustainability in the city: urban planning, architectural design, construction, water, power, waste, transportation and integration.

The wide mosaic that comprises Masdar City’s sustainability includes: • Low-carbon cement.

• Smart utility grids and appliances.

• Highest-quality building insulation.

• Advanced waste and wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse systems.

• Smart appliances, metres, buildings and grid to manage and monitor water and electricity use and wastage.

Energy generation and management

Water generation and management

Waste management

• Modern windtowers to collect cooler upper breezes and direct them downward to the public squares below.

• Intelligent use of shading to reduce solar gain on buildings, while increasing natural light – thereby lowering demand for internal lighting and cooling.

• A Material Recycling Centre for construction waste, with separate areas for concrete, wood, metal and other materials that has kept most construction waste out of landfills.

• Well-shaded pedestrian colonnades with retractable awnings that are closed during the day to provide additional shade, but opened at night to allow cooling breezes to pass through the colonnades.

• Some buildings’ exterior walls covered in blocks of cushion-shaped ETFE plastic backed by reflective foil to create a durable and lowmaintenance facade with a very low thermal mass, thereby limiting heat gain and resulting in reduced cooling demand inside the buildings and a cooler street environment outside.

Planning, engineering and architecture

Sustainable building materials

Transportation planning and management

12

The Business Base for Global Cleantech

13

In the fast-evolving renewable energy and cleantech industry, keeping abreast of changing requirements and promising technologies is crucial. As an emerging hub in this global industry and a magnet for talent, financial capital and entrepreneurship in the field, Masdar City provides a unique competitive advantage to companies operating here.

14

Cleantech Community The many benefits of industry clusters have been identified by leading business theorist Michael Porter, who saw that when many companies and organisations operating in the same industry are located in close proximity, they create an environment that enhances productivity, drives innovation and fosters new businesses.

Masdar City embodies this by bringing together a wide range of organisations from academia, and the public and private sectors to create a dynamic, vibrant, international and entrepreneurial community that is at the vanguard of this fastgrowing global industry. This environment immerses firms and employees in a community of likeminded professionals, as well as a physical surrounding that is one of the world’s most sustainable living and working environments.

As well, having a high-calibre research university anchoring the R&D activities in the city is a

A view of the Knowledge Centre at the Masdar Institute building

natural compliment to the industry cluster and provides it with a steady stream of ideas and trained practitioners. It also draws additional industry players to the cluster who are working with the university on various joint R&D projects.

The city provides an ideal location for firms operating in a range of technologies, including solar, green building, water, power storage, smart grids, efficiency appliances, electric vehicles and waste.

However, bringing professionals together in one district is not enough, and that’s why the urban planning of the city itself is designed to foster contact among practitioners and thus creativity and innovation. By placing an important focus on the public spaces between within the city, including a commitment to activating streets and squares, the city itself serves to promote social interaction and the exchange of ideas.

15

Dr Matteo Chiesa in the ground-breaking LENS Laboratory

16

17

Regional Business Opportunities The cleantech and renewable energy industry in the region is poised for a period of sustained growth, fuelled by both public and private sector interest. On the public side, there is a growing commitment from governments across the region to sustainable development, reflected in ambitious goals to increase the share of renewable energy in the national power generation mix and through the creation of increasingly supportive regulatory environments. On the private sector side, a number of factors, including better bottom-line performance, are driving businesses to operate more sustainably.

For example, Abu Dhabi has committed to secure 7% of its total energy needs from renewable sources by 2020, while Kuwait has pledged to produce 5% of its energy requirements from renewable power generation by 2020. Egypt plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by the year 2020. Morocco seeks to develop 2,000MW of wind, 2,000MW of hydroelectric and 2,000MW of solar power capacity by 2020, approximately 42% of its total power capacity. India is aiming to have 25GW of installed renewable grid-connected power by March 2012, representing more than 10% of total power production nationwide.

Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Qatar are implementing green building standards, while World Green Building Council member organisations have been established in the UAE and India, and are under certification in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. India is rapidly adding renewable energy power and as of March 2010 had a total installed renewable energy capacity of nearly 17GW, more than many industrialised nations at that time.

The UAE, through Masdar, has entered into a joint venture with France’s Total and Spain’s Abengoa to build a 100MW CSP plant; Yemen is pursuing a 60MW wind farm; Dubai is evaluating sites for a 10-100MW solar energy power project; Morocco is moving ahead with a 500MW solar facility, while Syria is designing a 50-100MW wind farm. Saudi Arabia is preparing its renewable and nuclear energy strategy after having established the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy.

It also is working on a 17MW solar hot water system.

One project that has region-wide implications is Desertec, an international consortium of energy and technology companies that seeks to build a series of Concentrating Solar Power, photovoltaic and wind power plants in the Middle East and North Africa to supply the local MENA market but also to export power to provide a targeted 15% of Europe’s energy demand by 2050.

18

Masdar City Location • Zero percent income taxes for companies and individuals.

Abu Dhabi itself offers the ideal gateway to the economies of the Middle East, North Africa and much of Asia because of its central location adjacent to three continents, excellent transportation and telecommunications infrastructure and the long-established trade and business links between the GCC and key surrounding regions, including the Indian subcontinent.

• No local sponsor required.

As a special economic zone, Masdar City offers a number of specific advantages:

• A high-quality ICT infrastructure within Masdar City that benefits from the UAE’s position as the most ICT-connected country in the region.

• Quick and easy set-up with a one-stop shop for registration, government relations and visa processing.

• An outstanding logistics network incorporating air, sea and road.

• Zero percent import tariffs.

• The opportunity to maximise corporate social responsibility objectives.

• No restrictions on capital, profits or quotas.

• No limits on the hiring of expatriate staff.

• No currency restrictions.

19

• A strong IP protection framework.

For technology firms and organisations focused on cleantech, Masdar City provides the following: • A safe, friendly working environment.

• All the amenities one would expect from a world-class city.

• Some of the most efficient, state-of-the-art and sustainable buildings that provide a healthy and ideal working environment for staff.

• All types of commercial space: high-grade offices, research laboratories, testing facilities, concept stores and retail.

• A self-contained city limiting the distance between home and workplace, and offering a pleasant and relaxed commute.

• Some of the region’s most advanced laboratories, at the Masdar Institute.

• A cluster environment that can open up funding opportunities to help businesses of all sizes grow.

• A location with unmatched international exposure from governments and organisations looking to learn from Masdar City, its partners and suppliers.

• A bridge connecting the established economies of the West with the growing markets of the East.

20

A view of the CSP beam down pilot at Masdar City

21

Commercialising Cleantech Masdar City offers a test bed that is matched by no other setting in the world. The ability to perform wide-scale testing and deployment of early- and late-stage technologies offers enormous advantages to companies based in the city.

Even in Masdar City’s early development, dozens of companies have already come to partner with the city on joint pilot projects that are testing a range of technologies in the areas of cooling, energy generation, sustainable design and material supply chain.

That’s because testing a new product or service outside the laboratory is a crucial step in the process of technology commercialisation. Being able to do so at a scale that matches the real world is even more beneficial. The quicker the turnaround between technology development, refinement and testing, the sooner a product or service gets to market. This can be done very quickly at Masdar City.

One of the first areas where commercialisation has occurred at Masdar City is in the area of concrete, where commercial amounts of lower embedded-carbon concrete have been produced at competitive prices.

In fact, the city is being built and has been masterplanned to facilitate and incorporate such testing and pilot projects. Because Masdar City is committed to being one of the world’s most sustainable urban developments, it is an enthusiastic partner to firms testing new energy and sustainability solutions.

The city also enables the continuous formal and informal exchange of ideas. Together, this combination helps companies speed the transition from a great idea or early-stage technology into a marketable product – with Masdar City itself being one major potential customer.

Artist impression: Torresol CSP plant, Spain

A Demonstration Showcase Whether a firm has seen its technology adopted by Masdar City or has simply installed its technology in the office, retail space or building in which it is located, the city provides a unique real-world showcase platform.

Not only will clients and prospects be able to view a company’s products and services in operation, but this unique environment also means they will see them integrated into, and operating alongside, other technologies – just as they would at the potential clients facilities.

This is significant because clients often like to see examples of products they are considering buying in action, such as at another company’s facilities.

But this is often not practical or convenient, and so Masdar City provides suppliers with a unique solution to this dilemma.

22

An Ecosystem to Power your Business Masdar City is an emerging cleantech cluster unlike any other sustainable development in the world. It embodies the vision of the Abu Dhabi leadership to promote a more sustainable world, and it provides a global platform for cleantech ďŹ rms, academic institutions and other organisations to locate, network, collaborate, demonstrate and develop new technologies and solutions.

It is a place where businesses can thrive and innovation can ourish. It is an integrator of renewable energy power generation and

The 10MW Solar Array in Masdar City

cleantech technologies, thereby helping to solve the enormous challenges of managing and bringing together the many complex systems that will contribute to the development of other sustainable cities.

Such a community always welcomes new partners and participants from the UAE, the region and the rest of the world to join in the growth of this unique city and industry cluster that brings innovative theory and best practice together for the beneďŹ t of companies, communities and the planet.

23

The Masdar Institute Building in Masdar CIty

24

The Built Environment

25

The built environment plays a critical role in making Masdar City a magnet for renewable energy and clean-technology firms. By providing a live-work atmosphere that encourages and inspires business growth and creativity, as well as an attractive and exciting place to live and work, organisations and their employees recognise clear benefits to locating here.

26

The First Phase The First Phase is being designed and built by a collaboration of the world’s foremost architects and planning firms. Foster + Partners, which has developed the city’s masterplan, has also designed the Masdar Institute campus, a complex structure that encompasses labs, student residences, classrooms and study and recreational facilities. The UK firm also has designed a number of Phase 1 residential and office buildings.

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture have designed the Masdar headquarters building, while other architects are designing a number of other buildings in Phase 1.

The First Phase

Masdar Instit ute of cience and Te chnology MasdarasInstitute dar Headquar ters otHeadquarters Masdar el and Confere nce Centre e Ret Hotel and Conference ail DistrictCentre siden The Retail District tial search and dev Residential elopment faci ovatand lities, ion development Research centres and offacilities, innovation centres and officesfices

The decision to build the city in phases is fundamental to the unique character of the city because it allows rapidly evolving cleantech technologies and lessons learned in earlier phases, to be incorporated into each new phase.

The First Phase will include the Masdar Institute campus, the first six buildings of which are already operational; the Masdar headquarters, and a number of residential, commercial, leisure and retail buildings. In all, there will be more than 995,000m2 of gross floor area in the First Phase, with 36% commercial, 39% residential, 2.6% retail, 4.6% community and 16% Masdar Institute.

27

Masdar Institute Developed in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Masdar Institute integrates theory and practice to incubate a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship and also seeks to partner with industry and government on research. As such, it is at the heart of the R&D community at Masdar City and wider Abu Dhabi. It will grow to eventually host 600-800 Masters and PhD students and 200 faculty.

The first six buildings of the Masdar Institute campus are the first completed buildings within Masdar City and serve as a model of sustainability. The residential buildings are designed to use 54% less potable water and have less than half the cooling demand of the UAE average. Twenty to thirty percent of its power demand is met by a 1MW rooftop PV array that not only shades the buildings, but also overhangs to provide shading to the streets below.

The buildings and surrounding infrastructure feature world-class building insulation technologies, domestic hot water provided by roof-mounted evacuated tube solar thermal collectors; fresh air intakes located at the shaded

street level, and the latest low-energy lighting specification. These and other technologies will be evaluated, with the buildings themselves serving as a test-bed for technologies that will help Masdar City achieve its sustainability goals.

The buildings are wired throughout with energy and water metering systems that monitors consumption and produce data that is readily accessible to students and faculty. Another unique aspect of the city is that walking is encouraged to reduce energy use and promote a healthy lifestyle in Masdar City, stairs are always prominently featured, while elevators are hidden.

One of the key landmarks of the Institute is its wind tower, a modern interpretation of one of the region’s most iconic traditional architectural features. Rising 45m above the street, the tower’s height means it can capture upper-level winds and direct them to the open-air public square at its base. Sensors at the top of the steel structure operate high-level louvers to open in the direction of prevailing winds and to close in other directions to divert wind down the tower.

Masdar Institute Knowledge Centre

28

Masdar Headquarters The Masdar headquarters building has been designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture to be the world’s first large-scale positive-energy building, using sustainable design strategies and systems to produce more energy than it consumes. It will house Masdar’s corporate offices and the secretariat of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), as well as retail and other commercial office space.

Once installed the 15,590 photovoltaic panels on the roof will form one of the largest roof-mounted PV panel arrays in the world and is expected to provide 103% of the energy needed to power the building on an annual basis. Covering nearly the area of four football pitches, the array will generate approximately 5.5 GWh of renewable energy annually, displacing approximately 4,400 metric tons of CO2e annually. A building-integrated photovoltaic laminate system on the east and west façades will generate the equivalent of 2% of the building’s energy requirements.

The building’s design, which has won several international awards, is inspired by traditional architectural features of the region – including wind towers, water features and vegetation. One of the key distinguishing features of the building is it high-performance “sawtooth” facade that allows access to daylight and views while mitigating glare and solar heat gain. The design of the wall orients

Artist impression: Masdar Headquarters building

the highest-transparency vision glazing (windows) toward cardinal north or south, where daylight is at its highest angles and can best be redirected into the interiors; the east- and west-facing nonvision glazing features a 16.44mm thick insulating unit. This façade will result in more daylight, better views, a lower cooling load and increased energy generation. The sawtooth facade is also more structurally sound and sustainable than alternatives, reducing the structural steel required for mullions.

The building’s signature architectural feature is a collection of 11 wind cones that provide natural ventilation and cooling (drawing warm air up to roof level, where wind moves it away) and form oasislike interior courtyards at ground level. The cones maximise diffused natural daylight throughout the building, leading to an anticipated energy savings of approximately 3.5%. The operable windows on the cones also allow occupants the option of naturally ventilating interior spaces. On the roof, shaded by the solar canopy, workers and visitors will enjoy communal outdoor green spaces.

The headquarters for Masdar will also be a centre of global renewable energy policy as home also to IRENA. With nearly 150 member states, IRENA is an intergovernmental organisation that aims to be the main driving force in promoting a rapid transition towards the widespread and sustainable use of renewable energy on a global scale.

29

30

Artist impression: The Courtyard Building at Masdar City – Exterior view

31

Low-Carbon Retail Experience Retail activity in Masdar City will contribute to the city’s appeal as a renewable energy and clean-technology hub, as well as provide valuable lessons regarding commercial activities in a sustainable modern urban setting. Retailers will provide goods and services in a manner consistent with the city’s low-carbon mandate, thereby increasing our understanding of how retail activities can be conducted in a sustainable manner.

Knowledge gained from meeting Masdar City’s sustainability targets can be used at a retailer’s other operations, thereby saving money, enhancing its green credentials and helping save the planet.

Companies that have already signed up to operate from Masdar City include: Caribou Coffee, health insurance provider Daman, telecom provider Etisalat, Sumo Sushi, express delivery company Aramex, Omeir Travel, Organics and National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

Distinctive Buildings One early example of what the city’s commercial environment will look like is General Electric’s first-ever ecomagination Centre, which will focus on promoting sustainable business solutions and showcase GE technologies in wind, solar and other renewable energy products, and energyefficient home appliances.

Another building, an EcoCommercial Building prototype, will be a model for energy efficient and economic construction, incorporating state-of-the art design for a subtropical climate, and will house

the Middle East EcoCommercial Building Program organisation from Bayer MaterialScience.

The 10,000m2 Courtyard building will be the city’s first office building, while “The Sprinster Complex” is being developed as a distinct neighbourhood within Masdar City to serve as home to Swiss companies with expertise in cleantech technology. These Swiss companies will play a role in the design and construction of the district, which thereby will serve as a showcase for their technologies.

Artist impression: The Courtyard Building at Masdar City – Interior view

32

The Sustainable City Toolkit

33

Creating any sustainable urban development or re-development requires a unique set of tools that are distinct from what it takes to build a conventional city. Masdar City aims to be one of the world’s most sustainable urban developments and will be at the forefront of developing these specific tools. This “sustainable city toolkit� encompasses seven elements: planning, power, water, waste, transport, supply chain and integration.

34

Planning Every aspect of the city’s urban planning, engineering and architecture is approached with sustainability in mind. More specifically, planning seeks to facilitate energy generation where applicable and reduce consumption of electricity, water and other resources.

Planners recognised that the biggest environmental gains come from some of the most passive, and least expensive, tools: the city’s (and buildings’) orientation (with regards to the sun and prevailing winds) and its form. Next most effective is building performance optimisation, such as an efficient envelope and systems, and smart building management. Active controls, such as renewable energy, are the most

expensive, while offering the lowest relative environment-impact returns. That’s why designers first concentrated on orientation and performance optimisation, thereby reducing a large amount of energy demand with little cost, and only subsequently looked at what active controls could be implemented.

Seven overriding characteristics define Masdar City’s planning approach: energy-efficient orientation; integration of districts and neighbourhoods; low rise, high density; vibrant public realm; pedestrian friendly; high quality of life; and convenient public transportation.

Power Masdar City seeks to maximise use of renewable energy, which is why power is one of the largest source of carbon savings and another reason why the efficiency of the city’s buildings and demand-side systems is maximised. Masdar City is using, or evaluating for use, in the city the following technologies: Photovoltaics The region’s largest ground-based gridconnected photovoltaic (PV) array is helping power the city, while roof-mounted PV is used on select buildings. The Masdar headquarters will have the largest roof-mounted PV installation in the world. PV will comprise the vast majority of the city’s onsite renewable energy generation.

Concentrating Solar Power Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology is being tested as a source of thermal energy for single- and double-effect absorption chiller systems, which could meet a significant portion of the city’s cooling demand.

Evacuated tube collectors Evacuated tube collectors will be roof mounted to provide domestic hot water and a base load that can be used for dehumidification.

Waste to energy Such technologies consume material that cannot be recycled or reused, as fuel for gasification, pyrolysis and plasma arc gasification systems.

In the long term, Masdar City will work with the Abu Dhabi Municipality to develop such a plant.

Geothermal The feasibility of using deep geothermal hot water as a thermal energy source has been evaluated, and will most likely be used with absorption chillers and for heating domestic hot water.

35

Geothermal

Evacuated tube collectors

Hot water Excess heat is diverted to an absorbtion chillerto provide site cooling

Photovoltaic panels

Concentrated solar power

Excess power returned to the national grid

Cooling and dehumidification

Transport

Site wide power distribution

Diagram explaining the range of energy production methods planned at Masdar City

36

Water leakage ultimately to 1%, treated wastewater recycling, and high-efficiency irrigation and lowwater use landscaping, particularly through use of indigenous desert flora.

Masdar City has been designed to minimise water waste and maximise the efficiency of treatment and production techniques. In the long term the goal is to reduce, in stages, the domestic water consumption to the target potable water consumption of 105 litres per person per day, far below business as usual.

Water-use reduction technologies include highefficiency appliances, low-flow showers, highly efficient laundry systems, a water tariff that promotes water efficiency, incentives, real-time monitoring, smart water metres that inform consumers of their consumption, reducing

The current wastewater system combines grey water and black water for processing and treatment at the city’s membrane bioreactor (MBR) plant. The treated sewage effluent produced at the MBR will be used for landscaping.

The biosolids resulting from the wastewater treatment can be reused for compositing and in any future waste-to-energy plant.

e th nd m ou ro rgr f ed de ct un lle om fr

W se ater aa c nd o

Fil ter ed

nd

C

ig

at ion

he W

irr or df use

Masdar City’s water strategy

ollected wat The ceaned and ster is cl y to be use ored d to.. read .

is Water

Reduced consumption through high tech appliances

Trea disc ted water ly effic harged to highystems ient cleaning s

h us Fl

t

llected r is co wate Rain

To ba be u ths s an e

s ap rs n t we d i sho d

and dow filters nu nd bac er k gr ou

Water

37

Masdar City’s waste strategy

Recyc labl e Products

Consumer

NonRec ycl ab le Bio -p ro

cts du

Waste Recycling to-energy Composting

Waste Strategy

Waste Masdar City’s waste management strategy seeks to minimise waste to landfill and maximise the resource potential of materials (i.e., recycling and reuse). As a first step, systems will be used and awareness will be raised to reduce the amount of waste generated in the city, i.e., by encouraging reusable bags and containers.

The next step is to sort and collect the waste produced by those living and working in the city.

Masdar Institute buildings have separate waste chutes to allow for the separation waste.

At later stages, vacuum waste systems may be implemented to automatically remove all waste from point of use, ensuring the city is clean and tidy and reducing the need for traditional dustcarts.

Once collected, the waste is sorted into compostable, non-recyclable and recyclable waste. All appropriate bio-waste will be composted and the product used to enrich the landscaping. Recyclable waste will be processed in the city or as close by as possible.

38

Transportation In answering one of the overriding priorities of Masdar City’s master plan – to be a pedestrianfocused community – a rich network of public and personal transportation options will ensure it is easy to move across the city in comfort and ease. As a result, walking and self-propelled transport will be the most convenient forms of transportation to many destinations within the city, as well as the most pleasant. This is the result of planners’ focus on created extensive shaded sidewalks and pathways throughout the city.

In addition, a public transport system of electric buses and other clean-energy vehicles will provide transport within the city, while Abu Dhabi’s light rail and Metro lines will pass through the centre of Masdar City, providing transport within the city and serving as a link to the wider metropolitan area. This extensive public transportation network means that no destination within the city will

Personal Rapid Transit vehicle

be more than 250-300m some form of public transport. Most private vehicles will be kept at the city’s edge in a number of parking lots that will be linked by electric bus routes to other public transportation traversing the city.

In its search for an appropriate and sustainable transportation solution, Masdar City is piloting a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system of electricpowered, automated, single-cabin vehicles that offer the privacy, comfort and non-stop travel of a taxi service, and the reliability and sustainability of a public transport system. The initial pilot route runs on a 1,700m track linking Masdar Institute to its parking lot. However, this emerging technology will serve only Masdar Institute at this time, as it is not yet ready for implementation on a wider scale.

As other new transport technologies emerge, they will be evaluated for use within the city.

39

Supply Chain Throughout the construction and operational life of Masdar City, there is an ongoing drive to use the latest sustainable products, materials and services. Through a detailed product evaluation process that includes environmental, economic (including cost and quality) and social considerations, Masdar City is reducing the overall impact of the materials chosen for the buildings and infrastructure in the city.

on the development of materials with a lower level of embodied carbon. As a result, the city is using a low-carbon cement, two types of aluminium with between 81% and 90% recycled aluminium content, and recycled steel reinforcing bars (rebar). As well, by working with local distributors, Masdar City contractors were able to source 100% sustainably grown timber.

There are many important considerations in this evaluation, including: cradle-to-grave lifecycle analysis, evaluation of recycled content, manufacturing processes, the level of energy and water used in manufacturing, assembly plant location, logistics, distribution, durability and recyclability. Through this screening and product specification process, Masdar City is having a positive local and regional effect by encouraging the overall supply chain to become more sustainable.

In particular, Masdar City works with suppliers to help them understand the environmental impact of their operations. Some early examples of this beneficial collaboration include having worked with several local and international material suppliers

Integration At the heart of Masdar City’s sustainability goals is the integration of the full range of renewable energy and sustainability technologies. The scale and scope of this integration is a distinguishing feature of Masdar City and will generate some of the city’s key intellectual property and innovation in the development of ‘green’ cities.

Recognising that the complexity of sustainable systems, even within a single structure, has been one of the biggest challenges to reducing the environmental impact of buildings, the integration of multiple complex systems on a city scale, poses an exponentially greater challenge. This challenge is augmented by the other need to ensure the proper balance of these systems across competing energy and resource demands.

The information communication and technology (ICT) infrastructure serves residents, businesses and visitors, as well as the smart networks that will link, manage and integrate city services. Smart technologies will play a fundamental and wideranging role in both achieving the integration of systems and enabling the smart distribution grid necessary to balance supply and demand.

40

Artist impression: Residence at Masdar City

Masdar City PO Box 54115, Abu Dhabi, UAE T +971 2 653 3333 E joinus@masdarcity.ae

Printed on 100% recycled paper made with post consumer fibre.

Ver4 – April 2011

www.masdarcity.ae