mission

anyone heard of this area.....know of anyone living there???

IKnowNothing

There's one in Southern California (allegedly), don't know anyone who lives there.

Masdar? Shit hole, and iggle is working on an expansion there (probably his waist size).

scrubbedexpat141

THE SUSTAINABLE CITY | DUBAI :: MASTER PLAN

The Sustainable City – A Community That Echos Natural Living

Frankly it's embarrassing that one of their big ideas is sticking solar panels on the roof of each villa etc.

Why this isn't done as a government directive is simply beyond me.

1000 villas, let's say 5mx5m just for ease. 25m2.
Say that only 10m2 is capable / suitable.
10m2 x 1000 villas = 10,000m2 of solar panels.

To work out efficiency;

Take the number of square meters of solar panel and times this by 1000; then times the resultant figure by the efficiency rating and times this final figure by the number of sun hours in your area in a day, according to the chart. This will give you your Watt hours per day.

For example: 10,000 square meter panel x 1000 = 10,000,000 x 0.15 (15% efficiency panel seems mid-range) = 1,500,000. 1,500,000 x 9 hours of sun hours (average in Dubai is 9.6) = 13,500,000 Watt hours per day. (13.5 MW)

That surely gives enough power to run those same homes?
Surely it provides some extra for 'the grid'?
Surely the cost of the individual panels will be lower (economies of scale), but then simply passed on to the home buyer?
Surely the local cabling will be similar to standard but different substations etc required, but again - large scale and costs dispersed.

Bahtat? You're good with this stuff.

iggle

Meh, could give two ****s about sustainability. I give you an example; there is massive drought in California, so there is a hose pipe ban, ban of fires etc. But they totally ignore that the agriculture / Almonds (nut juice) is sucking the state dry.

I refuse to recycle, i refuse to buy in to any of this sustainable crap until the the big boys do. As always (ie tax) hit the little guy and let the fat cats get away scott fee. I blame the liberals.

mission

err SCAMPY I have no idea what you are on about mate
I asked about this area because there are appear to be (from the pics online) some nice brand new 1 bed apartments for lease there (and damn cheap too) and so I was just trying to gage if anyone knew anyone living there etc.

mission

Habibi I am referring to The Sustainable City in Dubai...not frigging Cali

IKnowNothing

These pseudo arabs.... Meh.

scrubbedexpat141

I just think every new development should be 'sustainable' to some extent. Especially looking at solar in this city. It's so simple.

I didn't read any more about that Sustainable City, just shared the links. It probably won't get built or finished or done properly.

Millhouse

Rooftop solar is never simple. It should be, but it rarely is.

But I agree, legislation is the way forward.

scrubbedexpat141

I know it's not cheap, Mum's done it...the capital outlay for her will be repayed quite swiftly though.

But surely here, of all places, it's just a case of dispersing that cost. Let's say Mum's cost 10,000 GBP.
Let's call that (old rate) 60,000 dizzers.
Assuming NO economies of scale, on a 2,000,000 villa (for sake of argument) you're looking at charging 2,000,060 to the buyer.
That's 3%. Not a fortune.

I guess the appeal to people like my old dear is the reduction / potential cash back of/on bills.
Buyers here won't necessarily receive the benefit if they are just giving out to renters. Perhaps that's part of the struggle (well, it is for post-build potential solutions).

Anyway. It's just daft.

Millhouse

In the UK we have rain.
Who will dust them here? After about a week they won't produce any leccy.

mission

shaddup no harm in picking up the lingo

mission

I am just interested in the 1 bed apartments.

weasel decentral

You don't really get economies of scale putting them on individual houses bar some minor bulk buying power, you only get that on large stand alone installations.
Each individual house needs its own inverter to backfeed the grid, if that's even allowed in UAE I don't know.
As our short friend has mentioned without cleaning these panels quickly (very quickly) stop producing power. Your earlier estimate of power generated is probably a good 100 -200% high in practice.

Long way to go yet for it to be worthwhile imo.

Millhouse

only recently have they started to accept this - this is normally the first hurdle.