The concept of a smart grid powers up imaginations around the world—and not just inside the transmission and distribution industry. The cultural phenomenon of smart grid touches everyone from presidents to preschoolers. There are articles and documentaries on the subject. There are entire magazines and conferences on the topic. But, why stop there? Why stop with just the confined concept of a smart grid?
A smart grid is just the beginning; it's the infrastructure on which modern urban centers can build brighter futures. Renewables can be more easily integrated—both small and large, distributed and structural. Consumers can manage energy systems via the Internet, as can businesses. Data can flow two ways, rather than just one, allowing for use, interpretation and change at every point on the system. A smart city doesn't just have a better power grid with smart grid technology; it has a better municipal backbone, one that can reach into and benefit aspects beyond electricity, such as transportation and water distribution.
Amsterdam leads the way in developing a smart city. Rather than leaving the power company to find the half-dozen ways the utility can utilize a smarter grid, Amsterdam saw more potential for this game-changing technology. The city brought together businesses, officials and citizens to dream up the perfect power system from every angle, with benefits that flow past the power utility and into every home. Amsterdam's Climate Street project alone has reorganized industry thinking about how to approach the smart grid. Climate Street dramatically changes a few blocks in the city as a test bed of what can be possible with the integration of energy management systems, solar panels, water management and trash disposal. All of these items work together harmoniously, guided by smart grid technology, which juggles pulling solar energy with distributing data to the correct sources to run items on time and the most efficiently.
Other cities around Europe have stopped thinking of the smart grid as a technology push and started thinking of that technology in relation to urban living. Amsterdam is certainly not the only smart city on the horizon: Stockholm and Lyon are frontrunners as well. Additionally, in the U.S., there's a similar push in Boulder, Colorado. In China, the City of Yangzhou is moving in the smart city direction. And, in the Middle East, there's brilliant city planning using grid technology within the Masdar project.
POWERGRID Europe's session on smart cities this summer will feature speakers from Amsterdam, Stockholm and Masdar to enlighten attendees on this latest step forward in intelligent power infrastructure. No longer is smart grid the future. The smart grid is now; it's moving into our infrastructure daily. The future lies in building on that infrastructure. The future is smart cities: Using intelligent grid technology holistically in connection with city planning to create a greener, more efficient municipality.
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I agree about smart cities are the future ( I write from Barcelona ). It has arrived the time to forget urbanity order plans and invest on intelligent infrastructures to manage cities services.
ReplyDeleteBut I have a doubt, about the frontier between full city decisions and people intimacy. One example could be manage public buses with mobile signals of where people is, that allows also know where is an individual person.
Very interesting article