Masdar, the Abu Dhabi government-backed renewable-energy company, plans to announce its revised master plan “imminently,” the head of supply-chain management at the zero-carbon Masdar City project said.
“We’ll finalise the revised Masdar plan fairly imminently, in the next two to three weeks,” Richard Reynolds said at a conference in Dubaion Tuesday. “We’d only built part of it, so it made sense to stop and revisit.”
Founded in 2006, the $22 billion venture undertook a strategic review towards the end of last year after the financial crisis tightening spending. The initial strategy envisioned for Masdar was “very ambitious,” Chief Executive Officer Sultan al-Jaber said earlier this month.
Masdar is the showpiece of Abu Dhabi’s pursuit of alternative energy. Holder of most of the oil and gas reserves in the United Arab Emirates, the fifth-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Abu Dhabi is also building nuclear power plants and successfully lobbied to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency.
One of the issues being considered in the review is “how to make Masdar economically viable,” Reynolds said.
“Yes, we made staff cuts,” to eliminate an overlap of roles, he said. “We’re revisiting the choice of design and the commercial mix of the city.”
The venture includes a university, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, as well as units that plan to invest in solar power and carbon capture and storage in a country that is one of the world’s biggest per capita producers of carbon- dioxide emissions.
Masdar City itself will house all the renewable energy initiatives. Designed by London-based architects Foster & Partners Ltd., the initial proposal intended to eliminate cars and trucks at street level and include shaded walkways in a nation that endures temperatures of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) during summer months.
The plan to leave conventional cars at the city’s entrance and drive around the 6-square-kilometer (2.3-square-mile) location in electric driverless vehicles known as pods, is being reconsidered, Reynolds said.
“Having 3,000 pods running around the city would be great, but those were vehicles that couldn’t go outside Masdar,” he said. “So now, maybe we will have electric trains, or electric cars that can be used everywhere.”
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