Development of Masdar City, the carbon neutral city being constructed near Abu Dhabi's airport, is well underway and Abu Dhabi residents could soon benefit from clean energy. Masdar, the renewable energy company, is set to connect its solar power station to the grid.
The solar plant, which will have a capacity of 10 megawatts, has been designed to cover the power needs of the construction phase of Masdar City and, when the Masdar Institute welcomes its first batch of postgraduate research students this September, their research will be powered by the solar plant.
The project certainly looks to be gathering pace with the announcement this week that GE is to become an anchor partner in the Masdar City project. Masdar and GE have unveiled plans to construct a new Ecomagination Centre at the city. Ecomagination is GE's buzzword to describe its development of technologies to help customers address their environmental and financial needs. The Centre at Masdar will support the development of energy efficient products for the region and showcase technologies such as wind, solar and other renewable energy products.
The Masdar City project is also striding forward on the world stage. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Adu Dhabi's Minister of Foreign Affairs is to lead a delegation to Bonn, Germany to sign the founding treaty of the International Agency for Renewable Energies (Irena) and Dr Sultan al Jaber, the Masdar chief, hopes to host the Irena in Masdar City.
I've been writing about technology for nearly 20 years, including editing industry magazines Connect and Communications International. In 2002 I co-founded Futurity Media with Anthony Plewes. My focus in Futurity Media is in emerging technologies, social media and future gazing. As a graduate of philosophy & science, I have studied futurology & foresight to the post-grad level.