Located in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, The WAHA is a public park that uses elements of its natural environment to produce, in an artistic way, green electricity, thus meeting the requirements of the city's new master plan. This marks a step forward in the ecological path in which Abu Dhabi is engaged. Furthermore, it is the materialization of our firm conviction that energy production should be inherent to an architectural project.
The term "WAHA", in Arabic, refers to the "Oasis". We have created an oasis in the heart of Masdar City , where art meets technology. A place where people can enjoy walking, learning and awakening to science and renewable energies.
The park is formed by four technological oases, linked by pedestrian platforms, which span a road. Each of them produces its own electricity. The technological oasis is formed by a set of artificial trees, arranged around a heart, reminding us metaphorically of flower's petals surrounding the pistil. Artificial trees capture the electrical potential of the sun's rays as well as rainwater and moisture from the air, while the heart transforms wind energy into electricity thanks to the bladeless wind turbines that make it up.
The WAHA produces 2952 MWH of green electricity a year, enough to cover its own energy needs. It also provides light to 250 homes and allows 100 autonomous buses of the latest generation of Masdar City's Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) to travel every year, a global distance that matches 36 times Earth’s circumference. This energy production is realized thanks to an initial investment estimated at 19.95 US $ / Watt installed. This cost is less than the symbolic figure of 20 US $ / Watt installed, which represented the cost of a standard, small-scale solar installation in 1992, the year of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Since then, the cost of a similar installation has steadily decreased, reaching 3 US $ per installed Watt. In our case, we used the remaining 16.95 US $ to give an artistic envelope to our project, thus demonstrating that with the same 1992 budget, we could not only produce electricity in 2019, but also offer an artistic space to the city and its population.
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