Energy efficiency: It\'s all about Smart things

While energy efficiency helps people save energy at home and at filling stations, it helps businesses and city, state and federal governments save the same on a much bigger scale. Energy efficiency helps a nation financially by decreasing the overall demand for energy, and therefore the need to import and transport fossil fuels. The United States uses 56% less energy today than the periods when energy-efficient technologies and policies were absent. Nearly 52 quads (15 trillion kWh) of energy saved per year - the same amount of energy needed to power 12 states for a year. Overall, energy efficiency is saving the American government, its citizens and businesses more than $500 billion a year in avoided energy costs. International flexible packaging company Goglio, which is headquartered in Italy, has reduced its energy costs by 20 per cent by installing a CHP plant and cooling facilities. While Reckitt Benckiser, a British Multinational consumer goods company, has saved around 20% of its annual energy cost with the help of gas-fired CHP plant. Such impacts of energy efficiency can also be found in the housing and residential sectors. The average homeowner participating in the LiveSmart BC grant, an energy efficiency program of British Columbia reduces energy use by approximately 30 per cent, providing them with a financial savings of $600 on a $2000 on annual heating bill.
Smart City: Efficiency in energy management will drive sustainable Cities: Cities represent three quarters of energy consumption worldwide. Innovations that connect smart cities and energy disciplines are widespread. This includes technology that controls the energy consumption of buildings and interoperable communicating devices - such as temperature and air quality sensors, variable speed and drives, as well as smart meters and intensity and colour controlled LED lighting. These are examples of the technology that is changing the way we use energy and are essential for building a smart city. The European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) identifies Smart Cities and Communities as an instrument for energy efficiency.  CONCERTO (European Union initiative)  is one of such initiatives for cities promoting energy efficiency and renewable energies. It started in 2005 with an initial network of58 European cities and communities, from a total of 23 European countries, and supports the role and contribution of local authorities (primarily city administrations) as coordinators of actions for smart city development with a focus on energy issues. The results so far have been very encouraging: CONCERTO cities and communities have shown that existing buildings can cut their carbon-dioxide emissions, at acceptable costs, by up to 80%. The CONCERTO initiative proves that if given the right planning, cities and communities can be transformed into pioneers in energy efficiency and sustainability.
Constituents of a smart city: The immediate need for cities in developing countries to become smart requires a robust urban infrastructure to meet the increasing pace of urbanization. In developed countries, the challenge is to maintain legacy infrastructure systems, which cannot be abandoned due to cost, space and other considerations.
However standardized commonly accepted set of components for both developing and developed countries to make a smart city are: Smart buildings, Smart mobility, Smart water, Smart waste management, Smart health and Smart digital Layers
Smart buildings: A smart building management integrates the different physical systems present in an intelligent way to ensure that all the systems act together in an optimized and efficient manner. It can improve building energy efficiency, reduce waste and ensure an optimum usage of water, with operational effectiveness and occupant satisfaction. It is estimated that implementing smart building solutions could save as much as 30 per cent of water usage and 40 per cent of energy usage and reduce overall building maintenance costs by 10 to 30 per cent. In Austria, plus-energiebürohochhaus is acclaimed as the first smart office building, feeding more energy into the grid than it uses.
Smart mobility: Smart mobility is the approach that reduces congestion and foster faster, greener and cheaper transportation options. Most smart mobility systems use data collected from a variety of sources about mobility patterns in order to help optimize traffic conditions in a holistic manner. The bicycle-sharing system in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has saved 570 tons of carbon dioxide emissions since it began operations in 2012.
Intelligent transport system another example of smart mobility, integrates the entire array of multimodal transport options in a city, including both individual mobility and mass transit via a network of sensors, global positioning system-tracked public transportation, dynamic traffic lights, passenger information panels, automatic vehicle registration plate readers, closed-circuit television systems, navigation facilities, signalling systems and, most importantly, the capability of integrating live data from most of these sources. Poznan, Poland, is currently operating a modern intelligent transport system. This resulted in the massive improvements in safety, network management, traffic congestion, environmental performance, accessibility, convenience and public perception of the city.
Smart energy: Smart energy management systems use sensors, advanced meters, renewable energy sources, digital controls and analytic tools to automate, monitor and optimize energy distribution and usage. It optimize grid operation and usage by balancing the needs of the different stakeholders involved (consumers, producers and providers).The technology and innovations in smart energy infrastructure includes: distributed renewable generation, microgrids, smart grid technologies, energy storage, automated demand response, virtual power plants and demand-side innovations such as electric vehicles and smart appliances. These provide an extended network of intelligent energy devices across a city, with a detailed view of patterns of energy consumption, enabling community-based energy monitoring programmes and improving the energy efficiency of buildings.
A key component of smart energy infrastructure is a smart grid. A smart grid delivers electricity from point of generation to point of consumption integrated with ICT for enhanced grid operations, customer services and environmental benefits. The Kashiwa-no-ha smart city project in Japan uses a smart grid based on an area-wide energy management system combining home-energy management systems, real-time monitoring of energy supply and demand and self-sustained energy management with the optimal allocation of generated and stored energy.
Smart water: A smart water management system uses digital technology to help save water, reduce costs and increase the reliability and transparency of water distribution. Physical pipe networks are overlaid with data and information networks. The system typically analyses available flow and pressure data to determine anomalies (such as leaks) in real time to better manage water flow. Customers may be provided real-time information on the water situation and relevant information to help conserve water, leading to lower water bills. In Mumbai, India, as part of improvements to the water supply system, has installed smart water meters that may be controlled remotely, leading to a 50 per cent reduction in water leakage.
Smart waste management: Smart waste management systems reduce waste and categorize the type of waste at the source, and develop methods for the proper handling of waste. Such systems may be used to convert waste into a resource and create closed-loop economies. Their primary benefits are in improving the efficiency of waste collection, pick up, separation, reuse and recycling which enables the movement of different kinds of waste to be monitored, and technology may be leveraged to better understand and manage the flow of waste from source to disposal. Such projects are currently being piloted in Santander, Spain and Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
Smart health: Smart health-care management converts health-related data into clinical and business insights, which include digital health records, home health services and remote diagnoses, treatment and patient monitoring systems. It also facilitates the provision of health care using intelligent and networked technologies that help monitor the health conditions of citizens. It is enabling a shift in focus to prevention instead of cures, with a broader view of overall care, healthy living and wellness management. Smart health approaches also include crowd sourcing to collect data on epidemics and predict epidemic outbreaks and take the necessary precautions, remotely collecting patient health vitals and data for diagnostic purposes and establishing automated alerts for patients with regard to medications and health check-ups. In Africa, the Medic Mobile project in rural regions uses locally available mobile technology to help health workers report symptoms to the nearest clinic, receive treatment advice and emergency referrals and provide information about the prevalence of the disease burden in a village or community.
Smart digital layers: One of the key value propositions of ICT in a smart city is the ability to capture and share information in a timely manner. If the information is provided in real time and is accurate, cities can potentially take action before a problem begins to escalate. One way to consider digital infrastructure is in the form of different supporting digital layers, as follows:
(a) Urban: The layer where physical and digital infrastructures meet. Examples include smart buildings, smart mobility, smart grids (for utilities such as water, electricity and gas) and smart waste management systems.
(b) Sensor: This layer includes smart devices that measure and monitor different parameters of the city and its environment.
(c) Connectivity: This layer involves the transport of data and information from the sensor level to storage and to data aggregators for further analysis.
(d) Data analytics: This layer involves the analysis of data collected by different smart infrastructure systems, to help predict some events (such as traffic congestion).
(e) Automation: The digital enabling interface layer that enables automation and scalability for a large number of devices across multiple domains and verticals.
Dhaka: Prospects of becoming a smart city through efficient use of Energy
Ranking : Dhaka
Dhaka is currently considered one of the worst cities in the world to live in with its myriad problems ranging from notorious traffic congestion to water logging during rainy season. The capital city of Dhaka consumes almost 55% of total generated electricity. Rapid migration from rural to urban areas is leading to the emergence of urbanization and sustainability problems. Management and monitoring of resources and infrastructures is getting more difficult in this crowded city. Energy consumption is increasing with the growing population and intensifying in highly populated parts of the city. This increased energy consumption results in high energy demand as well as the production of more pollutants and heat in these city parts.. Practically, all activities arranging city life require energy. For instance, job activities, transportation, security, climate, catering, entertainment, commerce and etc.

Salman Rahman is an  Associate at Inspira Advisory and Consulting. He can be reached at [email protected]