Energy Efficiency in Smart Cities

INTRODUCTION

A Smart city is a framework designed to harness the capabilities of innovative technology and infrastructure to connect, protect, and enhance the lives of a city’s residents.

By harnessing the power of IT and IoT, a Smart city collects and analyses data from multiple channels to ‘sense’ the city’s environment, providing real-time information to help governments, enterprises, and citizens make better and more informed decisions to improve the overall quality of their lives. Data collected from multiple sensors helps make cost-efficient and sustainable decisions. Data from systems and networks results in actionable insights. These insights lead to more meaningful management which results in improved efficiency and resource allocation.

APPLICATIONS

Major areas of focus for implementing a Smart city framework are – air quality, communication architecture, built environment (buildings and homes), lighting, parking, public Wi-Fi, policing and security, transportation, urban mobility, water management and waste management.

Smart city initiatives are propping up all over the world. The Nordic Smart City Network is a collaboration initiative joining five Nordic countries, and currently 20 Nordic cities with a common goal: to explore the Nordic way to create liveable and sustainable cities. But to make Smart cities sustainable for the future, the infrastructure needs to be underpinned by an efficient energy network.

TOP PRIORITY: ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Smart cities need to improve energy efficiency, not just to save money, but also to help nations reach net-zero carbon emissions targets. If the widespread growth of Smart cities is to continue, delivering dramatic improvements in the energy consumption of densely populated urban environments through a Smart energy network is necessary.

With some parties being sceptical of increased technological adoption in city development, Smart cities must immediately show their value by reducing energy costs and bringing about tangible change in everyday life. This will help drive community development through newer initiatives while also getting cities on track to becoming frontrunners in green technology.

ACHIEVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Energy optimisation is a major issue because Smart cities employ a large number of interconnected devices to autonomously manage city operations, which consumes a lot of energy. This can be addressed by using the advantages of contemporary cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, and cloud computing for energy efficiency in Smart cities.

With the use of these technologies, energy consumption can be optimised for transportation, buildings, homes and utilities alike. All Smart city electric appliances can be equipped with IoT sensors that can detect movements, react to commands or be automated through a program. Super-fast communication through 5G and the ability to store, monitor and analyse data through cloud computing will enable agencies to get access to fine-tuned insights to better understand energy requirements and increase overall efficiency.

The next step for the Smart city ecosystem is improving overall efficiency even further. When every facet of a Smart city communicates to optimise energy usage and leverages renewables as much as possible, we will be able to see reduced consumption leading to huge energy savings.

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