rooftop solar photovoltaic systems as used there is 1) Old technology

2) That the surface area is the least. They should have used Solar Shingles on the external side. A lot of People in US & UK are using Solar roof top. It is more advantageous to use on sloping roof as the surface area is relatively greater than say in a similar size Terrace building.

Also nowadays people use stick-on solar panels as against "mounted panels". Then there are foldable/rollable solar cells... next gen tech is paint-on Solar panels (and I dont think they have used any of these).

Roof water heaters have been in existance for at least 2 decades or more... is not new tech. Solatubes are good. But leting in the sunlight is also old technology well used in Glass buildings as in the West Bay. I believe all Old tile-houses also have a Glass tile to let in the light...

What they have done in Masdar is mostly architecture rediscovery... like using the high wind tower to catch the cooler breeze and channel it downwards... shaping the alleys and creating more shadow corridor... all these were used in the past and they have just used in new style.

Maybe... maybe ...what they might plan to do is make it and say "see we tried... but it didnt work... we put in research, design, used latest tech.... but we will always have to depend on OIL for all energy needs"... Well this could have serious repercussions as whenever any Free Energy Project will be mooted Masdar will be an example of how it failed.... (what will never be revealed will be how badly they tried to use Solar Energy).

Forgive me for my rant.... but Masdar did not stand for what it was promised to be.

I beleive there is nothing any layman can take from it... If any layman wants to seriously pursue this interest fortunately there is the world wide and there is so much interesting things happening that makes the whole of Masdar Redundant.

But they do have beautiful buildings there :)