Masdar to announce revised master plan

Abu Dhabi: 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 Dubai yesterday. "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. The UAE is also building nuclear power plants and successfully lobbied to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency.

One of the issues 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.