une 21 (Bloomberg) -- Tariq Ali quit as head of research at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology after a year in the post, said two people familiar with the matter, the latest departure from Abu Dhabi’s flagship renewable energy project.
Dan Weisser, head of real-estate investments at Masdar City, and the head of the program management department Alistair Murray are also leaving, said two people familiar with each departure, declining to be identified because they are not authorized to speak with the media.
The resignations follow a strategic review of Masdar, a $22 billion company funded by the government of Abu Dhabi as it seeks to become an international hub for renewable energy. Founded in 2006, Masdar includes a research university as well as units that plan to invest in solar power and carbon capture and storage in a country that is one of the world’s biggest per capita producers of carbon emissions.
“It is well-known that the company was reconsidering the original plans for Masdar City,” said Eckart Woertz, an economist at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. Resignations “might hint to some problems at the university, but a lot of the renewable energy projects will go ahead as planned,” Woertz said, referring to an accord Masdar signed June 9 with Total SA and Abengoa SA to build the Middle East’s biggest solar plant.
Showpiece
Masdar is the showpiece of Abu Dhabi’s pursuit of alternative energy. Holder of most of the oil and gas reserves in the United Arab Emirates, the fifth-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Abu Dhabi is also building nuclear power plants and successfully lobbied to host the International Renewable Energy Agency headquarters.
The first departures began around the same time as the review, which took place in 2009. The resignations of Ziad Tassabehji, Masdar’s director of innovation and investments at Masdar City, and Khaled Awad, director of property development, were confirmed in February.
The initial strategy envisioned for Masdar was “very ambitious,” Chief Executive Officer Sultan al-Jaber said earlier this month.
Ali, 46, will leave his position as Vice President for Research and Industry Relations at the Masdar Institute, a joint venture with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the end of July. He’s looking for other positions in the emirate, the people said.
Ali is a former U.K. government energy adviser and director of the Energy and Environment Office at London’s Imperial College.
Renewable Energy
Ali and Murray declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg, and Weisser did not answer calls to his mobile phone. A spokesman for Masdar said the company doesn’t comment on people who are leaving, to protect their privacy.
Masdar Institute, a graduate-level university for renewable energy research that opened last September, is envisioned as the centerpiece of Masdar. The curriculum and programs have been developed with MIT, and the institute expects its student population to multiply tenfold to 800 by 2015.
Abu Dhabi has agreed on a number of international partnerships to fund research into alternative energy. General Electric Co. in 2008 formed an $8 billion fund with Mubadala Development Co., the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund that owns Masdar, to include an investment in a research center to be built at Masdar City. GE said in January it had not completed the financial details for the planned center.
GE at the time pledged also to invest $50 million in Masdar’s Clean Tech fund, a $250 million venture capital pool managed by Credit Suisse Group AG. Siemens AG said this year it is investing $50 million in the fund. Korea Investment Corp, the sovereign wealth fund of South Korea, is considering investing up to $100 million in the Clean Tech fund, Maeil Business Newspaper reported in March.
No Cars, Trucks
Masdar City itself will house all the renewable energy initiatives. Designed by London-based architects Foster and Partners Ltd, it would eliminate cars and trucks at street level and include shaded walkways in a nation that endures temperatures of well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) during summer months.
The U.A.E. has the world’s worst per-capita “ecological footprint,” the World Wildlife Fund said in a 2007 report based on data from 2003. The so-called footprint measures stress on a country’s environment using indicators such as carbon dioxide emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
