Abu Dhabi Goes Solar

Check out this proposed building in Dubai - The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse is another innovative green skyscraper to be constructed in Dubai. For energy generation, it will have three enormous 225 kilowatt wind turbines (29 meters in diameter), and 4000 photovoltaic panels on the south facing façade. To optimize performance and operational periods, the turbines have windward directional wind vanes or limited yaw.

Designed by the Atkins group, the 400-meter office tower aspires to reduce its total energy consumption by up to 65% and water consumption by up to 40%.

To achieve this goal the building makes use of extensive passive solar architecture, and many low water engineering solutions including recovery strategies for both energy and water.

The Lighthouse will contain over 84,000 square meters of commercial space and will also include parking, a convention center, retail, and an environmental visitor center and park connected to the DIFC central spine. Great importance has been placed on the building’s impact on local and global resources. Still only in development, plans are in place for all materials in the tower to be selected from sustainable sources. Atkins hopes that The Lighthouse will serve as a working prototype for future low carbon towers in the region, promoting more sustainable developments.

http://www.atkins-me.com/News.aspx?ItemNo=28

This is a step in the right direction. I hate it when people complain about wind turbines "ruining the landscape" (a common happening here in the UK) - I would fear that without the use of renewable energy sources the landscape may not remain beautiful for very long!

[debs]

This has to be put into context though because Dubai has more buildings popping up than anywhere in the world, many of them not eco developments.

http://thrillingwonder.blogspot.com/...te-part-2.html

Well they are one of the richest countries in the world so it's not really that surprising.

Dubai is perhaps the Emerite with the least amount of oil wealth. This is an offshore financial center, the financial capital of the middle east. Think of it more as a Singapore or a Hong Kong than an oil town.

[LMagic007]

Actually it makes allot of financial sense. I guess they would have a fair idea of how much oil they have left. Thus converting their oil credits to solar credits, whilst they still have the oil to do so, makes good economic sense.

When their oil runs out, not much point in being an oil dependant economy in a desert land, where most other agricultural industries face a competitive disadvantage on a global scale. Basically oil runs many of these countries and their expensive oil based infrastructure and it will all collapse in a heap when they run out of oil, if they don't invest in a viable alternative sooner rather than later.

Far better for them to move toward being a solar based economy, given the amount of sun they get and the fact that they have the oil wealth to be able to afford to invest in solar at a time where its yet to be fully competitive with fossil fuel generated power. Very smart move by their government in terms of future planning, for the day when the oil wells run dry.

Pretty cool video of the place on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovly1dQGKH4

[ESC]

I expect to see more then a few Wafer, Cell and Module facilities to pop up over the next 2 years in Dubia.

[hoon]

Abu Dhabi has started to build what it says is the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste car-free city.

Masdar City will cost $22bn (£11.3bn), take eight years to build and be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Work starts on Gulf 'green city'

[Myrtti]

Another interesting building project in the United Arab Emirates.

The United Arab Emirates plans to start building a multi-billion-dollar green city in the desert in the first quarter of this year, as the oil producer looks to become a pioneer of alternative energy.

The zero-carbon, zero waste city -- actually a town of up to 15,000 residents -- is being steered by Masdar, an initiative set up by the Abu Dhabi government to develop sustainable and clean energy.

INTERVIEW-UAE about to start building green city in desert | Reuters