globalsmartcity-blog

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Hybrid power in India?

In India, nearly a billion people use mobile phones and a network of broadcast masts to keep them talking. To keep these towers working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a lot of energy is consumed. Even though most towers located in the urban areas are usually connected to the main grid, most locations in India do not get a continuous or good quality grid supply. Additionally, more than 60% of the broadcast towers depend on diesel-powered generators.

Each mast consumes about the same amount of energy as an average urban household. But with 400,000 masts across the country, the total energy consumed is huge and a switch towards cleaner energy is needed.

The Indian Telecom industry is one of the main consumers of diesel in the country at nearly 2 billion litres every year. This is both expensive and polluting. The solution is hybrid power, a combination of renewable and grid power. The local telecom regulator has recommended that companies reduce their dependency on diesel and cut carbon emissions by 50% at all rural towers and 20% at urban towers.

To do so, companies need about $15,000 additional investment, which is a significant amount in the current economic climate. However, the savings of using hybrid power are significant too. Especially Solar Energy is considered as one of the most efficient alternative sources of energy in India.

The problem is that Telecom companies cannot afford to take on the role of electricity generation themselves, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to make money.

OMC Power is a company that is setting up micro-power plants in rural locations for telecom companies. They will tap into green energy sources like solar, wind and biogas, and provide a clean power source in remote areas. According to Anil Raj of OMC Power, there is going to be a big shift in the way power is consumed in India. Currently, there are very large power plants and inefficient transmission networks. Consequently, there is a need to generate and consume power locally. The biggest challenge however is the commercial viability of green power. Unless an effective clean energy model is developed soon, many fear that fuel costs will bleed an industry that is already heavily in debt.

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Ultra High Speed Internet in Kansas City

Time to give you an update on the Fiber Infrastructure that is about to be created in Kansas City, Kansas. Kansas City and Google proudly announced their cooperation on 30 March 2011 to realise the very first Ultra High Speed Internet and TV Access project 'Google Fiber' in Kansas City.

Google selected Kansas City to roll out Google Fiber, which is believed to be 100 times faster than the current average internet speed available, as it has a friendly and cooperative business environment, allows the company to build the network quickly and efficiently and allowed Google to shape strong connections with the local authorities.

In order to actually get Google Fiber into Kansas City, residents of the different areas need to acquire a certain number of online pre-registrations ($10) based on the density of their area before 9 September 2012. The area with the most registrations, gets the Fiber network installed.

In general, high speed internet access is highly beneficial to citizens at it enhances their connectivity. It allows them to access and share larger amounts of online data and to make better use of the information, communication and entertainment that the web has to offer. Besides super fast browsing, it provides instant downloads, crystal clear HD and storage of at least 500 hours of HD programming.

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Top Ten Smart Cities (Globally)

This list was created by taking many different aspects of the cities into account including Innovation Cities top 100, Quality of Life rankings, Siemens regional ranking of green cities, the digital rankings of Digital community for cities in the US indicated as DC, and the IDC rankings of smart cities in spain (indicated as IDC in the table. As well as the digital governance in municipalities worldwide study to compare cities on their innovative use of ICT.

The table below summarizes the rankings used to develop this ranking of smart cities.

The phrase “smart cities” is ambiguous in the way that some people choose a more narrowed definition – i.e cities that use information and communication technologies to their citizens. Rather than a broader definition for instance – Smart cities use information and communication tech (ICT) to be more intelligent and efficient in the use of resources, resulting in cost and energy savings, improved service delivery and quality of life, and reduced environmental footprint- all supporting innovation and a low-carbon economy.

The top 10 smart cities ranked in this way are as follows:

1- Vienna – Vienna is hardly publicized as a smart city however it was the only city that ranked in the top 10 in every category:

Innovation city (5), regional green city (4), quality of life (1) and digital governance (8). Vienna is ahead of the curve in terms of bold smart-city targets and tracking their progress to reach them, with programs like Smart Energy Vision 2050, Roadmap 2020, and Action Plan 2012-2015. Vienna’s architects are incorporating stakeholder consultation processes into building and executing carbon reduction, transportation and land use plannign changes in the hopes of making the city a major European player in smart city tech.

2- Toronto – The highest rated smart city in North America, toronto also scores pretty well across the board. Recognizing it’s importance in the movement, IBM recently opened a Business Analytics Solutions Centre in Toronto. Toronto is an active member of the Clinton 40 (C40) Megacities, which aim to force the transition to the low-carbon economy. In Toronto, it is not only the public sector that is pitching in, the private sector are also collaborating by creating a Smart Commute Toronto initiative in the hopes of increasing transit efficience in the metro area. Toronto have recently started using natural gas from landfills to power the city’s garbage trucks. That is smart “closed loop” thinking.

3- Paris – As is common within ranking on sustainability, Europe fared well. Paris was highly rated in several categories not least including innovation (3), green cities in Europe (10), and digital governance (11). Paris was already on the map for its highly successful bike sharing program, Velib not to mention the mayor who launched a similar model for small EVs called Autolib, which currently has 250 rental stations.

4-New York – NY scored higher than the vast majority of other cities in the ranking of all categories outside quality of life, where it was ranked at a depressing 47. New York partnered with IBM in 2009 to launch another IMB Business Analytics Solution Center to address “the growing demand for complex capabilities needed to build smarter cities and help client’s opimize all mannor of business processes and decisions. In New York IBM’s kit has already started helping the city prevent fires and protect first responers as well as identify questionable tax refund claims – a move that is expected to create savings over about $100 million for the city of the next five years.

5-London- Our capital also scored relatively high across the board. London has been well-recognized for its innovations that combat barriers to sustainability for instance the congestion tax, as well its efficient transit system. The Smart Cities research centre will soon be housed at the Imperial College within the city which will leverage transport, government, business, acedemic and consumer data in hopes of making the city more efficient and innovative. Just the other day, London announced a partnership with O2 to launch the biggest free WiFi network in Europe.

6- Tokyo – Tokyo is the first Asian city on this list, scoring healthily in the innovation (22) and digital city (15) classifications. Last year, the city announced plans to create a smart town in the suburbs. In collaboration with Panasonic, Accenture, and Tokyo Gas (among others), the eco-burb will contain homes that integrate solar panels, storage batteries, and energy efficient appliances all connected it’s smart grid. Tokyo is also focused on promoting smart mobility solutions.

7- Berlin - Berlin also performs well across the board, with good scores in innovation (14), green-ness (8th in Europe) and quality of life (17). In partnership with Vattenfall, BMW, and others, Berlin is testing out vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies in the hopes of creating a virtual power plant from electric vehicles.

8 – Copenhagen. It seems Copenhagen has been doing a lot right as of late. It was ranked number one on the green scale in Europe by Siemens and also achieved the number one rating in global resilient cities ranking last year. There is reasoning behind this: Copenhagen is taking a real leadership stance when it comes to sustainable innovation. The city has committed to carbon neurtrality by 2025 and 40% of its population regularly commute via bicycle. Moreover, Frank Jensen, the mayor, recently spoke about the role of cities as growth engines and the potential to stimulate the economy through cleantech innovation.

9-Hong Kong- Hong Kong was impressive in key areas including digital governance ranking (3). However, they were dropped to ranking of nine as they were ranked 70th in the quality of life score. Hong Kong is experimenting with RFID technology in its airport, as well as throughout the agriculture supply chain. The city has also been a world leader in the use and adoption of smart cards, which are already used by millions of citizens each day for services like public transit, library access, building access, shopping and car parks.

10 – Barcelona – Barcelona was recently ranked the number two smart city in Spain in the IDC report, with good reason. The city is a world beater and a pioneer in Smart City and low carbon solutions. It was among the first in the world to introuce a solar thermal ordinance about a decade ago, recently launched the LIVE EV project to promote the adoption of Evs and charging infrastructure, and the city also recently announced a major partnership to develop a living lab for smart city innovation.

There were many other strong candidates that were runners up in this first ranking but will expectantly break through the ranks in the coming years including Amsterdam, Melbourne, Seattle, Sao Paulo, Stockholm and Vancouver.

Industry experts and insider pundits expect smart cities to become a sizable market, with projections of nearly $40 billion spent on smart cities technologies by 2016. And real estate experts predict that smart cities will in future be attractive to the educated work force and will therefore become real-estate gold. This in itself is core reasoning for jumping on the smart-city bandwagon.

Next year maybe your city could crack the top ten rankings? Where would you start with improvements?

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India's Blackout: Smart Grid Solutions

A major news story which has dominated headlines over the past few days has been that of the major power blackout across three regional grids in North India. Even though it has been reported this morning electricity has now been restored, around 620 million residents in total were affected by the blackout.

The actual cause of the problem has not yet been identified, but it has been widely speculated that the blackout was due to state electric boards overdrawing power to sate the profound demand. Typically, power outages are commonplace in India due to this need for more power and the infrastructure is consequently exhausted.

The severity of the power cuts on this occasion have sparked much debated across the communities involved in the smart grid industry, with many people speaking out about how smart grid implementation could prove very beneficial to India.

Many believe (and it is easy to see why) that the country is desperate for a complete overhaul and upgrade of its current infrastructure. This would involve a combination of things - more transmission lines, better grid control, and better  generation capacity. Pricing and billing systems would also need to be amended to ensure that everybody is paying their fair share and reduce electricity theft and wasteful use.

A smarter power grid could be the solution to these woes. The smart grid concept uses smart metering which is designed to manage consumption used at peak times, often by encouraging more off peak power by households and small businesses, therefore shifting the load.

The technology used by smart grids would have beneficial gains to developing countries because it would help them to upgrade the control and management of the grid. The technology can detect and report unusual fluctuations in a very efficient manner, and when linked with more advanced control systems, it could initiate procedures that would defend the grid, therefore preventing widespread power outages by keeping the issue isolated in a sub region instead of an entire region.

Even with all of these benefits in mind, it is still unknown whether countries like India will adopt the use of a smart grid in the future. Perhaps for the sake of their extremely fast developing country and people, it seems after recent incidents, they should definitely be considering it.

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Small hydropower plants are pocket-sized pioneers of renewable energy

There are many areas of the world where the concept of hydropower is considered the norm, but in other places the idea is very unfamiliar. However unfamiliar this concept may be to some, market analysts at GlobalData believe that global government support for hydropower is fast making it become "a key renewable energy source," with small hydropower plants (SHP) demonstrating particular growth and potential over bigger facilities.

According to the GlobalData report, the global-combined installed capacity of hydropower increased significantly in the years 2006-2011 from 896.9 gigawatts to 1.072.1 gigawatts. They go further by predicting that this figure will reach around 1,443 gigwatts by 2020, due to the sustained world-round government support of hydropower.

So how do SHPs fit in? One of the main reasons is that when being constructed, they do not affect the surrounding habitat, not to mention the fact that they are much easier and cheaper to construct. Also, issues involving submergence and deforestation are usually rife during the build of a large plant, whereas with SHP's these factors are much less likely to be prominent.

Because they are viewed as a cost-effective and reliable option, as well as tending to be easier to set up, it is easy to see why SHP's are being utilised on a global basis.

GlobalData are not the only ones who think that hydropower is on the rise. The Department of Energy have also reported this year that there is huge potential for hydroelectric power to become a big game player in the U.S., namely by developing many SHP sites (54,000 to be precise) over the country to generate power.

The current top three countries with the greatest amount of SHP stations are China (55.3%), India (9%) and the U.S. (6.9%), but perhaps these statistics are set to change over the course of the decade.

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Barcelona & Cisco; collaborative foundations of a new “Smart City”

Barcelona & Cisco; collaborative foundations of a new “Smart City” Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona, and John Chambers, Cisco Chairman and CEO, have announced a planned collaboration of initiatives intended to move Barcelona closer to being a global reference model for sustainable urban development. Building on already ongoing collaboration between Cisco and Barcelona on the the ‘iCity’ project, these initiatives will make Barcelona a more viable blueprint for modern urban development, for other cities worldwide to consider. Cisco will support the creation of the Barcelona Institute of Technology for the Habitat (BIT for Habitat), the definition of a new City Protocol, and the development of new technology solutions for city services. BIT for Habitat,through collaboration with companies in the private sector, will intended to drive research into how innovation in new urban services can benefit Barcelona, and how best to employ any projects that will help this. The focus will be attracting partners from both public and private sectors who will promote these projects, and encourage an improved climate (in Barcelona and abroad) of R&D, consulting and education worldwide, in areas linked to Smart City development. Barcelona’s city council will promote association or partnership agreements between BIT for the Habitat and other international organisations such as UN Habitat. Cisco will become a Gold sponsor of BIT for the Habitat, contributing human resources, thought leadership, pertinent case studies, foundation fees, and a networking infrastructure. The city protocol will measure city efficiency and overall quality, assess structural, functional, sustainability and social criteria. This will help when it comes to defining the projects, processes and policies intended to further the short and long-term progress in the area of urban habitat. The city protocol has already been endorsed by MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and could serve as reference for governments, municipalities, planners and developers who want to convert their cities into “smart cities”. Cisco intend to develop a technology reference architecture known as the City Cases Methodology. It will define the ICT aspects of the smart city protocol, and will be an intrinsic part of the overall city protocol model. New city services will go through field testing in Barcelona.The pilot tests are as followed: - - A pay per use model for the city’s lighting in the place of the current fixed infrastructure. - Development of self-sufficient city blocks for energy. - Monitoring of energy consumption in public buildings - More efficient collection and use of rainwater in the city - Development of a smart bus network - Smart parking for the city. - Embedded information systems tasked with the promotion and management of relevant new relations/social interactions surrounding these projects Cisco will coordinate their collaboration from the new Cisco Innovation Center that will be established in the next few months in Barcelona’s new Smart City Campus.

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America is 'switched-on' to biomass energy.

The colossal 100 megawatt Nacogdoches Generating Facility, located in northeast Texas, USA has been switched on by its proprietor Southern Company. It is the largest biomass plant in the country, and will provide electricity to a company called Austin Energy through a 20-year purchase agreement. It cost $500 million to make and utilises 165-acres worth of space.

Artist Illustration of the Nacogdoches Generating Facility.

Southern Company President, Chairman and CEO Thomas A. Fanning states that, "This is an important milestone for the community, the city of Austin and Southern Company, as the plant provides jobs and economic impact for Nacogdoches County and further diversifies the fuel portfolios of Austin Energy and Southern Company to strengthen our nation's energy independence."

The biomass plant will have the capacity to supply electricity to around 20,000 homes during the summer, and 50,000 homes throughout the non-summer months. It has already created around 100 local jobs, and according to Fanning, will generate approximately $5 million a year in employee salaries/benefits.

Nacodoches is powered by non-merchandisable wood items like forest waste, diseased tree species and commercially unusable wood waste from wood mills. Southern Company states that the biomass plant makes use of the most innovative technology available for this particular industry - such as a "bubbling fluidized-bed boiler," which has the dual capabilities of being able to use a variety of biomass while maintaining low emissions. 

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Brisbane Smart Grid City Model to be displayed in Queensland

Earlier this year, ABB launched a competition for university engineering students to demonstrate a smart grid city model, and how this model could be integrated with smart grid technology in an Australian city of their choosing. The winner has been announced as the University of Queensland- securing a grant to construct their model intended for the city of Brisbane, which will be displayed at ABB’s upcoming Automation and Power World Australia event at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre in Queensland. The competition, intended to introduce students to the power and automation technologies they may work with in the future, thereby enhancing their skills. After submissions were closed, each model entry was reviewed by a panel of ABB judges who analysed design, aesthetics, proposed use of smart grid technologies, and overall construction feasibility-.ultimately choosing the University of Queenland’s entry despite tough competition from the other entries. Inspired by the greener, smarter cities that were conceptualised by the candidates- introducing distributed energy resources utilising renewable energies, storage, electric vehicles and active houses- ABB felt that students John Puckett, Henry Wang, and Professor Tapan Saha (acting in a supervisory role) put forward the entry that stood out most, and are ‘proud to showcase it for the customers and guests at Automation and Power World Australia in October’, believing their design ‘demonstrated through model concept and simulation how smart grids could deliver Brisbane a stable, secure, efficient and sustainable power network’. Professor Saha said, ‘This was an excellent opportunity for the students to immerse themselves in a real-world future application”.

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Project “INGRID”

A combination of electrolysis, hydrogen storage, smart grid monitoring, and control to balance power supply and demand under a scenario of a high penetration of renewables is the focus of a consortium of seven European partners who have come together to launch the INGRID project. At a cost of €23.9 million, this four year project will be taking place in the Puglia region of Italy, and has received €13.8 million in funding from the European Commision under the Seventh Framework Programme. The Puglia region already has more than 3,500 MW of installed solar, wind and biomass. The INGRID project will provide effective balancing support for the local electricity grid through use of a 39 MWh energy storage facility, combined with a 1.2 MW Hydrogenics electrolyser, which- using McPhy solid state technology- allows for hydrogen storage of up to 1 ton. A number of potential value streams are being considered for the carbon-neutral hydrogen that this facility will generate. Unlike geothermal and biomass, sunlight and wind are resources that cannot be controlled; generation of energy using these methods carries the risk of varying quantities of output due to their dependency on weather conditions. While a concern, changes to procedures and technology could very well make high penetration of renewables a feasible option, and with our need for renewable energy sources, this may well become common practice in the years to come.

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Beijing Olympics CO2 Traffic Reduction - Should London Follow Suit?

With the London 2012 Opening Ceremony underway in just a few days, NASA-funded research into the bid to cut traffic emissions around Beijing during the time they hosted the games has recently been released - and the results are impressive.

Map showing the percentage decrease in carbon monoxide emissions for 2007-2008

The main focus was to provide cleaner air quality around the city during the summer of 2008 so that there was a healthier atmosphere for both competitors and public alike; but this research carried out by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) now shows that the constraints on motor vehicles during this time period also ensured that carbon dioxide emissions were drastically reduced by 24,000 to 96,000 metric tons.

Beijing, like other cities in the world, has been intensely industrialized in the past few decades, and with this fact now has unhealthy amount of air pollutants. The restrictions put in place during The Olympics included strict limits on vehicle usage within the city, such as banning 50% of privately owned vehicles, as well as imposing limits on industry and temporarily halting construction.

So what of the relevance of this? The authors of the research commented that this reduction by just one city represents more than 1/4 of 1 percent of the emissions cut that would be needed worldwide (and for a prolonged period) to stop the planet from heating up by approximately 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st Century, i.e. the amount of heating that is thought to have significant societal consequences.

Even though scientists have been aware that a reduction in traffic in an urban area means a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions (and you don't really need to be a scientist to figure that one out!), these new results are concrete supporting evidence, something which is usually difficult to calculate in reality, according to NCAR scientist and lead author, Helen Worden:

“The Beijing Olympics allowed us to actually measure what happens when people drive much less, and it turns out that it makes quite a substantial difference to our climate. People may think their choice of how to commute to work doesn’t make a difference, whether driving their cars or riding their bikes. But on a large scale, it really does.”

So, all of this research begs the question: should London have followed suit with the Beijing method? Well, not quite, according to Worden. She believes that the same study could not be applied in this case, in part because the cloud conditions and surface in London aren’t as suitable for the carbon monoxide measurements that the research used, and also because London differs from Beijing with regards to its pollution controls. Additionally, London has had restricted traffic controls in the central city for a number of years now, and has added a few of its own measurements for the both the Olympics and subsequent Paralympics - such as specified vehicle lanes etc.

While the research may not be directly relevant to the upcoming games, it does demonstrate how regulating urban traffic flow could be utilised in the future - and is a tried and tested method in the battle to combat climate change.

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Tuscan, Arizona, and their mirror-making technology to produce solar electricity.

Smart cities are becoming more and more important and are popping up worldwide. Most of these smart cities develop and use smart technologies to create a better environment. An example of this is Tuscan, Arizona.

In Tuscan, Arizona, a mirror-making technology aims to produce solar electricity. The Department of energy gave $1.5 million to researchers of the University of Arizona campus to improve this  mirror-making technology they’ve developed. They want to be able to provide the solar electricity their technology produces to consumers at a price which is competitive with non-renewable energy sources.

Their system is actually an empty swimming pool with a house-sized frame a crisscrossing steel tubes referred to as the tracker mounted onto a swiveling post in the concrete bottom of the pool. The trackers support two curved, highly reflective glass mirrors, each measuring 10 feet by 10 feet.

Roger Angel, Regent’s professor of Astronomy and Optical Sciences and director of the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab said that they developed this mirror-making technology to make highly concentrating solar mirrors. He said that their technology holds the promise of getting the price of solar energy down to where it can be used on a large scale without depending on subsidies, so they can be competitive in the electricity market. 

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Lowe’s “Smart home” systems. The future?

Lowe’s ‘Iris’ system is expanding beyond its 10 store pilot run, to being stocked in nearly 500 stores this week, as well as being available to order nationwide. The home improvement company’s ‘Iris’ boasts an ability to increase security, manage energy consumption, and keep homeowners apprised of a number of situations- from freezer doors being left open to elderly parents in trouble. Allowing the use of computers or mobile devices to monitor and remotely control thermostats, door locks, motion sensors, cameras & power consumption- Iris is the latest in a string of smart home systems that have appeared on the market.

The question remains as to whether smart homes will really catch on, or if there’s even a demand for them. After all, home security company ADT’s ‘Pulse’ smart home system has been on offer since 2010, Verizon released their own system late last year, Time Warner Cable released its ‘IntelligentHome’ service in Charlotte six months ago- not to mention Comcast’s Xfinity, and AT&T ‘Digital Life’. A survey of experts done by The Pew Internet & American Life Project showed a slight majority believed that fully connected smart homes will in fact become much more widespread and efficient by 2020, while just under half believe that the majority of smart home efforts will fail due to their complexity, and general issues of trust for consumers. The survey showed that a major obstacle for their adoption is whether or not these houses will be manufactured with compatible standards in consumer electronics. The manufacturers are quite diverse, and if there is little-no compatibility, then the systems will struggle to communicate with one another. The systems are being modified to make them as simple and easy to use as possible, but they’re inherently more complicated than the standard home, and carry the stigma made famous by novelist George Orwell’s ‘1984’. Knowing that their comings and goings, and energy consumption would constantly be monitored has a very “Big Brother is watching you” type feeling to it, and will likely put a number of potential buyers off. That being said, Lowe has high hopes that smart homes will make their move, however slowly, towards the mainstream, and are working to expand the number of appliances that can be accessed wireless with the ‘Iris’ system, and could potentially link ‘Iris’ with electricity meters in future “smart grids” in the future.

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Australia and their renewable energy sector

Recently, the Australian government decided to introduce a plan to reduce the carbon pollution in Australia. The plan includes an investment of more than AUD$5 billion for the development and commercialization of clean energy technologies. They also want to move the energy sector away from high polluting sources like brown coal and better land management can make the storage of  millions of tons of carbon in the land possible.

Chau Duncan, Trade Commissioner of ASEAN Clean Energy and Environment said that Australia doesn’t just want to reduce their carbon pollution, they also set to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. They want a reduction of at least  23 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, with as a comparison the levels of 2000.

She also said that the renewable energy sector of Australia will grow a lot more in the future with a greater focus and with more investment coming from the Clean Energy Futures package that was announced last year. Although the renewable energy sector of Australia is still in a developing phase, Australia has the best renewable energy sources on the planet. But only 8.7 per cent of its electricity comes from these renewable energy sources. This is a big difference when you compare it to the worldwide average of 20 per cent.  Luckily it is expected that this will grow quickly and that by 2020, wind energy and solar power will provide the largest shares of Australia’s targeted 20 per cent renewable energy.

This renewable energy is of great importance to the low emission goals that Australia has set. Duncan said that the Australian government is giving a lot of support to this renewable energy market. They assist industry development, reduce barriers to the national electricity market, and provide community access to renewable energy. State and territory governments also decided to implement measures to increase the uptake of renewable energy.

The Australian government is also developing programmes and initiatives to support households, industry and communities to save energy and reduce emissions. They already created energy efficiency programmes, jobs and industry assistance, and land sector assistance. Rebates and assistance have also been introduced by most of the state and territory governments in Australia.

Australia is also known to have a good reputation for its companies that work in the environment industry. They have companies working with water treatment, solid waste management and recycling, air pollution testing, mine site regeneration, and land remediation. They are known to have an excellent environmental science, research and development, and commercialization of new and innovative technologies. They also enjoy a competitive advantage because of their strong technical expertise, strong technology and science base, and understanding of environmental issues. The Australian workforce is also known to be highly skilled and their proximity to Asia and the Pacific is seen as an advantage.

Today, Australia offers renewable energy technologies like solar geothermal, wind, wave and bio-energy power. And they are currently exploring low emission technologies like carbon capture and storage. Governments, private companies and individuals are also adapting energy efficiency methods, green buildings and construction, and environmental services. It’s estimated that their clean industry is worth AUD$5.2 billion and has employed more than 45.000 people in the last few years.

Duncan said that Australia keeps seeking for investments to further scale up their renewable energy production. They are already exporting technology and services, engineering and project management expertise, education, and research and development to the clean energy and environment sector.

In addition to all of this, Australia also is the world leader in water reform and water management. They are generating new technologies with commercial applications in both domestic and export markets.

Australia benefits from its rich resources and with all the clean energy initiatives going on, there is no doubt that they will attract more investments from across the globe to their renewable energy sector.

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Future360.tv

A new platform has been introduced, focusing only on innovations in clean and green technologies. This platform is called Future360.tv and is a video platform offering video series. The founder and host of Future360.tv is Sarah Backhouse. She has been reporting on environmental issues for many years and she decided she wanted to put the focus on solutions to the planet’s climate, energy and environmental problems.

The site offers a very broad coverage of topics and geographical areas. Its geographical scope traverses to globe from Silicon Valley, California to Munich, Germany. And the topics of the site cover key sectors from energy water, building transportation, as well as entrepreneurship and investment.

As a veteran host and producer with credits on BBC, CNBC, PBS, Planet Green and Discovery Channel, Backhouse decided that video is the obvious medium for her new idea. She said that video is the best medium to condense and simplify how often complicated technologies work. She says that so much incredible work is being done in the sector that a need has arisen for dynamic story-telling to stakeholders and consumers. She want to do her part to ensure cleantech thrives.

Future360 is looking to expand as much as possible this year. Backhouse also says that the trajectory of Future360 mirrors that of the cleantech start-ups that they cover. Proof of concept has now been established, so they started looking for strategic partnerships in business, government and non-profit sectors to help Future360 achieve altitude. There are so many talented entrepreneurs working on innovative new technologies and business models today that there will be no lack of material for the Future360.tv.

Go to the Future360 website for more information and to watch short, premium videos.  

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Tshwane 2055, a Smart City being developed

Kgosientso Ramokgopa, executive mayor of Tshwane, unveiled the city’s new long-term development strategy called Tshwane 2055. This new strategy shows the growth and development plan for the city in the future (for the next four decades). Tshwane 2055 isn’t just a plan, it also shows the aspiration of the city because it want to leverage its status as the capital city and revamp its image as a cesspool of informal trading and traffic congestion.

Ramokgopa said that the city already approved a strategy in 2004. But since things have changes and new municipalities have been incorporated, the city feels the need to revise the City Development Strategy. So Tshwane 2055 isn’t a new process but a review of the already existing strategy. This review is needed because of the globalised world which has become more accessible. So as a city, it’s needed to respond to this.

Some of the key issues of the Tshwane 2055 strategy that the city will be working on over the next few decades are the issue of spatial re-engineering, shared economic development, creating a safer, more competitive, resilient and sustainable city. Another issue is that the governance has to become more transparent. People need to better understand their rights and this can be done if Tshwane is governed in a collective manner that is engaging.

The city now has some challenges related to poverty, unemployment and inequality. So the new strategy needs to address these challenges. That’s why the strategy can become a game-changer for Tshwane. Jason Ngobeni, city manager of Tshwane, highlighted that the new and improved strategy is developed in collaboration with planned developments in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. They did this because they feel like developing in isolation isn’t the way to go.

Although Tshwane 2055 is a Tshwane project, it also effect the rest of the province. The long term strategy wants to bring people from different cities together to reduce costs of transportation. They want to build a pedestrian-friendly city where the number of vehicles on the road is as less as possible and where hop-on/hop-off public transportation becomes reality.

The council also wants to remove parking on the sides of the roads and widen sidewalks because they all feel that the city needs to be given back to the pedestrians. That’s why they are for the moment consulting broadly with informal traders and taxi industries. And with all the parking places being removed from the city center, they plan to bring huge parking facilities at the entrance of the city and access these parking places with free train and bus services to the center.

Some other aspects of Smart Cities are being applied on Tshwane, like increasing police visibility for a better public safety and security of the city. And they also want to drive the city by smart technologies. 

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Midtown in Motion

NYC thinks it has found a way to speed up traffic in midtown. They use a program called “Midtown in Motion” that uses cameras and sensors to measure the traffic in real-time so engineers can adjust traffic lights wherever there are bottlenecks thus improving the traffic flow in real-time.

The program now relies on 100 sensors, 32 cameras and E-ZPass readers at more than 20 intersections between Second and Sixth avenues. The planned expansion of the “Midtown in Motion” will widen the coverage from First to Ninth avenues and speed the reaction times to manage the program more effectively. The program is now about one year old and cars are getting through midtown 10% faster.

The cities high-tech system is the wave of the future. This kind of electronic systems can be put in every city to help with the traffic jams. But it is not enough. To reform this real-time technology into a smart technology, a lot more needs to happen.

They could for example create a system where the traffic lights are automatically  adjusted according to the data they receive from the sensors and cameras. This would make the real-time aspect even more efficient. And building on the use of sensors to decrease traffic jams in the cities, sensors could also be used in parking spots. A lot of people in NYC circle blocks looking for a parking spot. Sensors could pick up where a spot is free and give this data to the drivers through smartphones or other smart technologies.

In the future, a lot of new, innovative and interesting technologies will make life for people living in cities easier. And a lot of these smart, real-time technologies will have something to do with traffic and transportation, since this is a big problem in a lot of big cities. 

[globalsmartcity-blog]

Smart technologies at our fingertips

Technologies are getting smarter, everybody know this, but not everybody is aware of just how smart our Technologies are becoming. It’s not just GPS capability in smartphones or smart appliances that improve efficiency. These technologies are just the tip of the iceberg. Smart technologies are around us every day but we just don’t realize that they are there.  Examples are surveillance cameras, clothing, cars, buildings and much more. Smart technologies today are being invented and developed to watch us, help us, and get smarter because of us. So in technical terms, smart technologies are used to collect data, analyze this data and apply this to everyday uses.

A good example are the in-store surveillance cameras. In the past, the quality of this videos was poor and blurry, so you couldn’t actually make anything out of the footage. But today, smart technologies can make something out of this; First of all there is software now that can clean up video footage so we can better see details. And secondly, the big old cameras can be replace by new cameras which film in a much better resolution while still being low cost.

These cameras nowadays aren’t just used for police use like in the past. Today, companies are also tapping into these video streams and they use high-speed computer analytics to do a shopping analyses of the store, based on the security camera footage. So the security cameras expose a wealth of sales and marketing data and now companies use smart technologies to read into this.

The footage shows customer movements like what products they stop in front of, how often do they stop in front of these products, is the counter at the end of the row attracting movement or not. Using smart technologies, they don’t need to watch the video in the evening to analyze the footage. It’s all automated and software can analyze the video and produce data. When stores use the camera footage of not only inside the store but also outside the store, they can get a lot of useful information.

Great-Britain is the country at the moment that has the most advances practice in using cameras to analyze traffic patterns and look at high-crime areas. They have cameras all over their cities and towns which capture 24/7 video footage. They then use high-speed analytics to analyze the traffic flow, people movement, crime and more.

And it’s not just video footage but they also record audio. After a video is recorded, they can audio zoom in and listen to conversation that are happening at intersections, for example. No one is actually going to listen to these conversations. Smart technologies are used to automatically search for keywords or phrases in conversation. Now this technology is already used in Great-Britain, and it is predicted that other countries will take over this smart technology in the future.

Another example of how innovative these smart technologies are is the clothes you wear. They can also have technological components in them. A simple example are helmets like bicycle, sky or motorcycle helmets that can be used to mount a small high-definition camera on so it can record HD videos. This is called “The Helmet Hero”.

A key characteristic of smart technologies is being small.  So an example of this are the high-quality videos that can be taken from a very mall lens that’s just clipped to or embedded in your sunglasses. These can then be uploaded directly to Facebook or other social media platforms. So a real life example of this can be that you’re for example walking on a beach or hiking a mountain, you can take a picture with your glasses and upload it directly to your Facebook.

Wearable technology even goes beyond this. Adidas created an ‘intelligent football boot’ that can upload performance data like maximum speed, minimum speed, number of sprints, distance you took for a sprint, etc. So this is a true training device that keep track of your entire training regimen. This started with a football but it will probably spread to other sports as well.

To go even more further, the US military developed mart underwear. This underwear has micro sensors that can monitor respiration, heart rate, body posture and skin temperature. So they can analyze what really happens with troops when they are in the fields. All the data is transmitted wireless and can be monitored in real-time. So if somebody has a problem or has been wounded, they already have body monitors on them. This same technology can also be used for professional athletes. It can track hydration levels, heart rate and other things.

This smart underwear can also be used for medical applications. Instead of wearing heavy monitors all the time, people who need to be monitored can wear this underwear. The collected data can be automatically streamed to the doctor’s office. So this would be less expensive and more efficient.

The real exciting thing of it all as that thing we always so of technologies from the future are really becoming reality. Like the Siri technology that Apple created. With Siri, we have an ultra-intelligent electronic agent with us at all times. And now we still need a smartphone to use Siri, but soon, we won’t. So you could be walking around hands-free and asking things to yourself like what’s my next appointment, where’s the nearest Starbucks or write an email without needing anything more than for example a piece of jewelry with the right technology in it. Most people and businesses see a smartphone as the technology of the future, but why not create a small device without a screen and use voice input only.

It’s sure that in the future, we’ll see more smart technologies coming up. Especially with all the processing power, bandwidth and storage which continuous to expand. The wealth of information coming from cameras to clothes can be gleaned, stored and transmitted. And this data will grow, giving us access to new and usable knowledge that can enhance both business and life. So you can already start thinking how you or your company can work smarter with all these new technologies at your fingertips.