Q&A with Fatima Al Suwaidi: Visiting UAE Engineer Details How NREL and Masdar are Helping Shape Her Career Goals
Fatima Al Madhloum Al Suwaidi is a visiting engineer from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where she is a project engineer for the Middle East’s leading renewable energy player, Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company). She holds a Bachelor of Science in renewable energy engineering from the University of Sharjah and is currently a visiting scientist at the Colorado School of Mines.
Fatima is contributing to analysis work in the Integrated Applications Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Her research spans floating photovoltaics, sustainable transportation, and the energy-water-food nexus, with a specific focus on economic viability analysis.
The following is a discussion of Fatima’s work at both Masdar and NREL. The conversation has been edited for length.
What exactly is Masdar City?
Masdar was founded in 2006 and Masdar City in Abu Dhabi broke ground in 2008, following the UAE leadership’s commitment to embed sustainability in our nation’s long-term development agenda. Masdar City aims to be one of the most sustainable urban communities in the world. It is a dynamic and lively community where today employees from more than 560 companies, students, tourists, families and private residents live, work and enjoy their leisure time. The overarching theme of Masdar City is environmental awareness, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that many people here in Denver, outside of the NREL community, also fully embrace the concepts of environmentalism and sustainable development. That is one of the things I like most about Colorado in general.
What’s your role at Masdar City?
I’m part of the technology team at Masdar. It’s our job to stay informed about the latest technological advancements around the world in renewable energy and sustainable technologies. Masdar dedicates resources to teams like mine to stay ahead of the game. It’s important that we learn and invest in new technologies and tailor them where we can to the needs of the UAE. I’m passionate about technology and Masdar is a company that encourages its employees to follow their interests and ambitions.
What sort of interests have guided your work at Masdar City?
About a year ago, I came across an article on floating photovoltaics (FPV). It intrigued me that a technology which is so mature was now being applied in a new way, partly as a result of the dramatic fall in costs solar PV has witnessed in recent years. FPV is different from standard PV technology in many ways, but at the end of the day, it’s still PV on water. And then I discovered a few months later that Masdar is currently working on developing an FPV project in Indonesia.
I like to think of myself as a very curious person, and so when I heard about this project, I immediately spoke to my line manager to find out more. I’m not part of the team directly responsible for our Indonesia project, but even so, the management allowed me to join a field trip to Singapore to visit the world’s largest FPV testbed (1MW at peak). The experience really sparked my interest – there’s so much to learn with FPV, even though the technology has been around for more than a decade. For example, the benefits from reducing water evaporation are largely unknown. You need to run tests for a very long time.
Is it not rather remarkable that Masdar is tackling such a large project with little previous experience in FPV?
Our philosophy at Masdar is to help commercialize advanced technology by applying it at scale, so I would say this project complements our technology strategy very well indeed. We’ve invested in the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm, the first solar power plant to generate electricity 24 hours a day thanks to thermal storage technology, and today we’re building one of the world’s largest solar power plants equipped with solar tracking technology. So, our involvement in FPV is a further illustration of our commitment to invest in cutting-edge clean tech. It’s what we do – we go after the technologies we believe can be commercial, and then we take them to the next level.
Have you been able to follow your FPV interests since coming to NREL?
Yes, and I’m so grateful to Masdar and NREL for the support I’ve received. I was given the opportunity to study FPV here through a Masdar employee development program called “Emerging Leaders.” NREL has been looking at FPV for about a year and recently published a paper on its potential in the U.S. When I got here, the team decided to do a comparison of land-based PV and FPV. The work I’m doing mainly concerns the economics of both technologies. I’ve also contributed to an initial analysis of the potential to introduce FPV in Colombia, a country which already generates more than 70 percent of its electricity from hydropower but is a victim of severe drought. Integrating FPV with Colombia’s existing hydropower infrastructure makes sense because it allows for significant savings in both capital and operational expenditure.
How about the other projects you’re working on at NREL?
I’m also looking at sustainable mobility, specifically, the viability of deploying electric vehicles (EV) and PV together. We’re evaluating the regulatory aspects and the business case to invest. We’re hoping to draft a policy manual on battery-powered electric buses (BEBs) and the synergies of co-deploying BEBs, PV and battery storage. EVs are another passion of mine! Before coming to NREL, I was part of the team that developed the first locally manufactured electric bus in the UAE, which is undergoing trials in Abu Dhabi at the moment.
How has your perspective changed since coming to NREL?
Today, Masdar is a global company active in more than 20 countries. But we don’t yet have a presence in the U.S. So naturally, the opportunity to work with NREL has been extremely rewarding from a professional and career standpoint. It has given me a much deeper understanding of the renewables sector in North America. I’m also very grateful for the opportunity to delve deeper into the research side of the renewable energy field. Overall, it’s been a wonderful experience, both personally and professionally. Denver is a beautiful city and everyone at NREL has been so welcoming.
Watch Fatima Al Suwaidi talk about how she believes the #Worldin2026 will be a better place because of more awareness and education around clean technologies.