First impressions from Masdar's sci-fi solar city

Masdar’s $22bn (£15bn) “zero carbon” city isn't much to look at yet. It’s currently a fenced off 6km by 6km area of scrubland outside the city of Abu Dhabi, with a large 10MW solar PV farm in one corner.

But construction happens fast in Abu Dhabi, and by 2016 the government hopes Masdar City will be the world’s first traffic free, zero carbon, zero waste city – a home to 1,500 businesses and 50,000 residents as well as a showpiece for new clean technologies that can be sold around the world as a replacement for the oil revenues the emirate relies on so heavily at the moment.

There are other such projects around the world, notably near Tianjin and Dongtan in China, but Masdar City is perhaps the most ambitious – the government hopes that within 10 years this relatively small city will add some two per cent to the country's already hefty $100bn plus GDP.

Residents will travel around the city by "rapid transport pods" at above street level, while the city will be linked with nearby Abu Dhabi by an elevated light railway. The transport network, along with everything else within the city, will be powered by up to 200MW renewable energy capacity, some 80 per cent of which will come from solar PV panels.

Moreover, four fifths of the water used in the city will be recycled, slashing the need to pump in desalinated water, with its large energy footprint, by 75 per cent. And a new desalination facility drawing water from the local water table and power from solar panels will further serve to cut the amount of water that is pumped to the settlement.

All streets will be pedestrianised and residents and workers will wander around a series of Islamic themed garden spaces as well as piazzas based on those found in southern Italy.

So far, so science fiction, but visiting the site it is difficult to imagine it all now. Evidence of development is visible in cranes around what will be the Masdar scientific research institute – due to open in September – but currently not much more than a building site.

Next to what will be the research institute is a solar PV test plant that represents one of the largest ever field studies of solar panel technology anywhere in the world.

Because more than 160MW of the city's power will come from solar panels, city planners want to field test the panels to make sure they get value for money and check that the manufacturer's efficiency claims – often made based on tests in controlled conditions – stack up in a real life environment.

"We are monitoring 41 systems provided by 33 suppliers over an 18-month period on site, to work out which will be the most appropriate to our needs," explains Sameer Abu Zaid, the city's infrastructure manager for power and distribution.

Two types of panels are being tested: mono-crystalline panels which are highly efficient but use a lot of silicon and are expensive; and thin film panels which are less efficient but much cheaper.

"Crystalline panels occupy less surface area than thin film ones, so we are likely to use those if we are limited for space – for example, on the rooftops. If they are ground mounts we're more likely to do a mix of the two," says Samir.

In a distant corner of the fenced-off city site is a 10MW grid connected solar plant – the largest in the Middle East and North Africa.

It is 70 per cent completed and is already generating electricity to such a level that developers expect much of the work done during the first phase of the construction process to be powered by the plant.

The sites' 88,000 panels – 5MW mono crystalline and 5MW thin film – are spread over 200,000sq m.

Although the panels come from Chinese manufacturer Suntech and US outfit First Solar (following extensive testing on the site mentioned before) the plant was built by local consultants Enviromena at a cost of about $50m.

"Masdar wants to use renewables to diversify the local economy, and using Enviromina to build this plant is a good example of that – whenever possible local firms are used," says Enviromena chief executive Sami Khoreibi.

Masdar is now looking to move further up the solar value chain. The investment arm of the project already has a panel manufacturing plant in Germany, and after the construction of the city Abu Dhabi hopes to become a solar industry hub, attracting the best talent in the solar industry from around the world and beginning to develop and manufacture solar panels in the new Masdar City.

"Eventually this will give us the know-how and the expertise to develop these technologies ourselves," says Khoreibi.

Looking at the opulence of nearby Abu Dhabi, and the rate at which things can happen in an emirate with the second highest GDP per capita in the world, it's very easy to believe that Masdar's sci-fi vision and global clean tech ambitions could well come true sooner rather than later.