Abu Dhabi's Eco-City Plans Are Downsized

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After what officials described as a "comprehensive" project review, several flashy elements have been dropped from plans for Masdar, the ambitious eco-city under construction in Abu Dhabi.

Created from the ground-up, Masdar is designed as a fully self-contained, zero-carbon city, built around an education and research institution focused on alternative energies. With Foster & Partners as master planners, and financial backing from the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, a government-owned company, every aspect of the city was engineered for energy and waster efficiency, incorporating the latest technologies and design techniques, from narrows streets shaded by solar panels to complex systems creating electricity from waste.

After three years of construction, this week executives announced the project was on track, but more than $3 billion has been trimmed from the budget after a 10-month review of the master plan. The cuts were attributed, in part, to a drop in building costs, as well as a slowdown in housing demand.


"The market has changed. We need to acknowledge that," Alan Frost, the director of Masdar City, told the National. "In some ways, not having built a whole lot of stock has allowed us to reassess the market."

On a fundamental level, developers of the project acknowledged they would not be able to cost-effectively generate enough renewable energy to power the city, at least in the short term.

"While still aiming to eventually be powered 100 percent by renewable energy, Masdar City will no longer rely solely on on-site clean energy sources," the developers announced in a press release. "Instead, the purchase of renewable energy from off-site locations may also be utilized as energy demands increase over the project's lifetime."                     

Several elements have been dropped from the project, including plans to rely on underground electric "bubble cars" to move people around the city. The Personal Rapid Transport system is now described as a "pilot project."

The project originally intended to ban cars on the narrow, energy-efficient streets, but now it is considering allowing electric cars. Plans to build a desalination plant to supply the city's water were also dumped.

"From an energy point of view it [desalination] doesn't make any sense," Foster & Partners senior partner Gerard Evenden told the Financial Times.

Developers say they want to take time to adjust to new technologies as Masdar grows. Six buildings already completed use 50 percent less energy and water than typical Abu Dhabi homes, and 30 percent of the power is generated by solar systems, the developers say.

Masdar's one-million-square-meter first phase is now scheduled for completion in 2015, two years later than expected. The project should be finished sometime between 2020 and 2025, if all goes according to plan, the developers say.

 

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