A Field Trip to Masdar City: A Sustainable Eco-City

Just when the rest of the kids have started their brand new school year, we are just on the last stretch of our homeschooling year for Kuya. In fairness, we started December last year and our final portfolio review will be this coming week already.

One of the benefits of homeschooling that we truly enjoyed is the flexibility with our time and of course the wide range of things we can do to learn.

We are able to go on field trips, to get an actual understanding of how things work, for example. Two weeks ago, for our Science lesson, we went to Masdar City to visit their Solar Plant.

Solar Energy

The Sun is one of the major sources of energy on earth. Abu Dhabi, UAE, a city which ranks as amongst the world's top oil producers also receives lots of sunshine throughout the year.

Quite appropriately, Masdar, a regional leader and a major international player in renewable energy and sustainable urban development, envisioned to create a sustainable city which sets an environmentally friendly example on how cities can accommodate rapid urbanisation and dramatically reduce energy, water and waste.

Masdar City 10MW Solar Panel Farm

Ahh, the blessing from the sun!

This facility produces 17,500 megawatt-hours of clean electricity annually. That is 15,000 tonnes of carbon emissions avoided per year. ¹

Now, that is making use of the abundant solar energy we get in this part of the world!

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Can you imagine your household 100% powered by the sun?

Welcome to the Masdar City Eco-Villa!

This villa, a 405 sqm home was constructed at the same cost as the conventional villa. However, it is more energy and water efficient that shall reduce running cost overtime. It will use around 72 per cent less energy and 35 per cent less water than a typical comparably sized villa in Abu Dhabi, displacing an estimated 63 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. ²

At the moment, there are is no one permanently living here but it is open for the public to see.

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Now, that's a really interesting home. We had a great time checking it out. You can see more on the video linked at the bottom of the post.

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology

After a brief tour at the Eco-Villa, we visited the Masdar Institute, purposely to try the Electric Car or the PRT - Personal Rapit Transit. I got to try this computer powered car before with @pingcess and Princess, but it is not operational this time due to an on-going construction.

So we just roamed around and marveled at the architecture and technology behind this complex.

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology is an independent, research-driven, graduate-level university focused on advanced energy and sustainable technologies.

The buildings are a mix of modern and traditional Arabic architecture, designed to sustain the hot climate with the intention of leaving a less environmental footprint.

Note the building above at the right, it uses "fritting" on the glass walls to keep heat at bay yet still promote diffused natural lighting inside. These circular dots of ceramic frit are applied more densely on windows higher up the building, where there is more direct sunlight, and less densely further down. ³

Did you know...

The benches across the city, are not like other concrete. These are made from ‘low-carbon’ concrete which has significantly lower environmental footprint because up to 60% of the energy-intensive Portland cement is replaced with ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), a waste product from iron making. ⁴

Now, wouldn't that make you smile?

_{"Choose Happy. Happiness is a lifestyle."}

Getting to Masdar City

Masdar City is 5 minutes away from the Abu Dhabi International Airport and 20 minutes from the city proper. It is open to the public every day, the location map and driving directions can be found here.

At the Masdar Institute, park your car at the North Car Park where there cars that can shuttle you to the main building and back.

Conclusion

Abu Dhabi is a city which is rich in many aspects. Owning one of the largest oil reserves in the world, it is no wonder why many expatriates come to work and live here, including my family. The people and culture are also very deep and interesting. Masdar setting up their headquarters in this city is a giant leap as it focuses on green and renewable energy which is really very important if we were to take care of our environment.

It is an ambitious project, but definitely doable. It is happening. And we are glad to be able to have seen some of them. It is definitely a place we'd like to see again soon.

Don't forget to check out a brief video of our mini-field trip here: