Ahmed Khalil Al Hosani H00225193

Madinat Masdar in Abu Dhabi

Introduction:

Madinat Masdar is an ecology project in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Its core is a planned city, which is being built by Masdar, a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company, with the majority of seed capital provided by the Government of Abu Dhabi. Designed by the British architectural firm Foster and Partners, the city relies on solar energy and other renewable energy sources. Masdar City is being constructed 17 kilometers (11 mi) east-south-east of the city of Abu Dhabi, beside Abu Dhabi International Airport.

· Design and intent

The project is headed by Masdar, a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company. Initiated in 2006, the project was estimated to cost US$18-22 billion and take approximately eight years to build, with the first phase scheduled to be completed and habitable in 2009. Construction began on Masdar City in 2008 and the first six buildings of the city were completed and occupied in October 2010. However, due to the impact of the global financial crisis, Phase 1 of the city, the initial 1,000,000 square meters (0.39 mi), will be completed in 2015. Final completion is scheduled to occur between 2020 and 2025. The estimated cost of the city has also declined by 10 to 15 percent, putting the development between US$18.7 and 19.8 billion. The city is envisioned to cover 6 square kilometers (2.3 mi) and will be home to 45,000 to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses, primarily commercial and manufacturing facilities specializing in environmentally friendly products. In turn, more than 60,000 workers are expected to commute to the city daily.

· Architecture

Masdar is a sustainable mixed-use development designed to be very friendly to pedestrians and cyclists.

Masdar City has terracotta walls decorated with arabesque patterns. From a distance, the city looks like a cube. The temperature in the streets is generally 15 to 20°C cooler than the surrounding desert. The temperature difference is due to Masdar's unique construction. A 45-meter high wind tower modeled on traditional Arab designs sucks air from above and pushes a cooling breeze through Masdar's streets. The site is raised above the surrounding land to create a slight cooling effect. Buildings are clustered close together to create streets and walkways shielded from the sun.

Masdar City was designed by Foster and Partners. Foster's design team started its work by touring ancient cities such as Cairo and Muscat to see how they kept cool. Foster found that these cities coped with hot desert temperatures through shorter, narrower streets usually no longer than 70 meters. The buildings at the end of these streets create just enough wind turbulence to push air upwards, creating a flushing effect that cools the street.

A regional headquarters for Siemens has been built in Masdar City. This building is the most energy efficient in all of Abu Dhabi. The 130,000 square-foot building is built around the idea of a "box within a box." The structure includes a highly insulated airtight inner facade that insulates from the sun and a lightweight aluminum shading system on the exterior. The plaza beneath the building is funnel-shaped. This shape works to suck prevailing winds underneath the building. Due to the Venturi effect, a breeze flows up to the roof of the building through atria in the buildings structure, cooling public spaces without energy costs. These atria also allow daylight into the center of the building in order to reduce the need for artificial lighting, further reducing energy consumption. The buildings automation systems are all from Siemens.

· The source of power

Masdar is powered by a 22-hectare (54-acre) field of 87,777 solar panels with additional panels on roofs.

The plant is the largest of its kind in the Middle East which uses parabolic trough technology. The facility produces around 17,500 MWh of clean electricity annually which its power output is enough to power 20,000 homes and offsets 15,000 tons of carbon emissions per year. The plant consists of 87,780 multicrystalline and thin film modules supplied by Suntech and First Solar.

Solar panels use light energy (photons) from the sun to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect. The majority of modules use wafer-based crystalline silicon cells or thin-film cells based on cadmium telluride or silicon. The structural (load carrying) member of a module can either be the top layer or the back layer. Cells must also be protected from mechanical damage and moisture. Most solar modules are rigid, but semi-flexible ones are available, based on thin-film cells. After that electrical connections are made in series to achieve a desired output voltage and/or in parallel to provide a desired current capability.

10MW Solar PV Plant - Quick Facts

· Largest solar power plant in the region

· Land Area: 210,000 square meters

· Installed Capacity: 10 megawatt peak

· Displaces approximately 15,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually

· 87,780 modules (18,228 Suntech, 69,552 First Solar)

· Energy Generation: 17,564 MWh annually

There are no light switches or water taps in the city; movement sensors control lighting and water to cut electricity and water consumption by 51 and 55 percent respectively. Gerard Evenden, the lead architect, says that the original plan for Masdar called for powering the entire city through on-site methods such as rooftop solar panels.

· Transport system

The initial design banned automobiles, as travel will be accomplished via public mass transit and personal rapid transit (PRT) systems, with existing road and railways connecting to other locations outside the city. The absence of motor vehicles coupled with Masdar's perimeter wall, designed to keep out the hot desert winds, allows for narrow and shaded streets that help funnel cooler breezes across the city. In October 2010 it was announced the PRT would not expand beyond the pilot scheme due to the cost of creating the undercroft to segregate the system from pedestrian traffic. Subsequently, a test fleet of 10 Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric cars was deployed in 2011 as part of a one-year pilot to test a point-to-point transportation solution for the city as a complement to the PRT and the freight rapid transit (FRT), both of which consist of automated electric-powered vehicles.

Under a revised design, public transport within the city will rely on methods other than the PRTs. Masdar will instead use a mix of electric vehicles and other clean-energy vehicles for mass transit inside the city. The majority of private vehicles will be restricted to parking lots along the city's perimeter. Abu Dhabi's existing light rail and metro line will connect Masdar City's Centre with the greater metropolitan area.

Conclusion:

My point of view is this is a best project to make sustainability a base for everything that mean for example by use a new technology that help to decrease the co2 and other dangerous emissions in air that will fix many problems such as first problem is global warming and second problem is Pollution .

Reference:

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· Masdar: the shifting goalposts of Abu Dhabi's ambitious eco-city: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/12/features/reality-hits-masdar.

[Accessed 29 12 2014].

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· UAE’s Solar Power Capacity to Reach 20GW by 2030, Predicts Masdar Institute Faculty:

https://www.masdar.ac.ae/component/k2/item/6132-uae-s-solar-power-capacity-to-reach-20gw-by-2030-predicts-masdar-institute-faculty.

[Accessed 1 1 2015].

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· Masdar solar energy plant ready:

http://www.thenational.ae/business/masdar-solar-energy-plant-ready

[Accessed 1 1 2015].

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· Masdar City Solar PV Plant :

http://www.masdar.ae/en/city/detail/masdar-city-solar-pv-plant .

[Accessed 6 1 2015].

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· Construction Begins on Masdar and International Renewable Energy Agency Headquarters Complex:

http://www.masdar.ae/en/media/detail/construction-begins-on-masdar-and-international-renewable-energy-agency-hea .

[Accessed 8 1 2015].