Helsinki is already regarded as one of the world’s smartest cities – and in Kalasatama, that is especially true. Visitors to the neighbourhood in the central district discover new Smart City solutions on virtual every street corner: household waste is disposed of through an underground pipeline system; a self-service library is being tested in a smart container; and locals can reserve electric cars using their smartphones as part of a car-sharing scheme. And smart solutions are also installed in the locals’ apartments for them to monitor their water and electricity consumption. Kalasatama borders downtown Helsinki, right on the shoreline. The plan is for the neighbourhood to be providing 8,000 jobs and homes for almost 20,000 people in around 15 years’ time. The first residents moved into their homes in Spring 2015. They are fitted out with home automation solutions from ABB and Helen, the public utility corporation in Helsinki. Features include the facility to check consumption data online in real time. This facility alone is expected to deliver energy savings of 15 per cent. “Through the home automation system, the occupants are aware of where and when energy and water are consumed. With this information, they are able to better understand where savings can be made,” explains Helen’s Development Manager Minna Näsman. Moreover, the system enables electrical appliances to be switched on when grid supply levels are high, meaning electricity tariffs are low.

A smart, efficient overall solution

“The entire energy solution used in Helsinki is based on integrating highly energy-efficient production methods, such as co-producing power, heat and renewable forms of energy into a smart and effective whole,” says Pekka Manninen, CEO of public utility Helen. What is created is a Smart Grid – a power supply network combining smart meters and a range of automation, data and communication solutions with traditional power and heat grids. This incorporates solutions which ensure that surplus power from renewable sources in the neighbourhood itself (such as solar modules and wind turbines) can be fed into the grid. Electric vehicles can also draw power from the grid and feed it back in. The solutions should make the services user-friendly and the distribution network more flexible and transparent. All these measures are targeted at cutting energy consumption and emissions.

Energy store ensures stability

If the Suvilahti photovoltaic plant’s 1,188 solar panels – incidentally making it the largest solar power plant in Finland – produce lots of power on a sunny day, it can be sold at cheap-rate tariffs. So at times of overproduction, more is consumed, or electric vehicles are charged. When supplies are low, power is drawn back from the e-mobility batteries connected to the grid. Such an area is difficult to control using traditional solutions. Kalasatama is controlled through new automation solutions in the network and properties and, above all, energy storage which is the heart of the smart electric grid,” says Matti Vaattovaara, Vice President Sales, at ABB. The store consists of 10,000 lithium-ion batteries, and is capable of storing one megawatt of energy. The discharge capacity is equivalent to that of approximately 4,000 solar panels. The store will stabilise the frequency of the primary grid, balance out production and consumption spikes, make the local grid more secure and provide power reserves for critical situations. The example of Kalasatama demonstrates that efficient energy supply will play a key role on the way to the Smart City. Microgrids – self-contained regional or urban energy systems, as in Helsinki – enable a balance to be found between production and consumption. They are autonomous, and offer the advantage that the energy is generated near to where it is consumed, thus reaching the consumers more readily. Microgrids are core components of Smart Cities.

(picture credits: Voima Graphics)

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7 a.m.
Breakfast. On the table, there are fresh tomatoes, cultivated on a “vertical farm” inside a decommissioned underground railway tunnel just three streets away.

7.50 a.m.
After you leave, the Smart Home detects that no-one‘s in. All unneeded power consumers are automatically turned off and the house temperature is lowered by two degrees, saving energy.

8 a.m.
On the way to work – in an electric car that has been charging overnight in the garage. The photovoltaic plant on the roof supplies the power.

8.30 a.m.
Thanks to detailed information on available parking outside the office, you waste no time searching for a spot.

8.35 a.m.
The video system recognises the employees’ faces and automatically lets them in – no hold-ups entering the building or clocking-in.

8.40 a.m.
In the office. With LED lighting closely attuned to the time of day and pollutant-free air, the “green” building provides an optimum working climate.

10 a.m.
Back at home, the washer-dryer starts up. The smart meter has been notified that the grid capacity is currently high, so the electricity tariff is low.

3.30 p.m.
Alert on your smartphone! The sensors in your parents’ house signal that someone has had a fall. A short time later comes the all-clear. The telemonitoring control centre has called the house and talked to someone, everything is OK.

4.30 p.m.
On the drive home from work, there’s an accident! As the navigation system automatically receives up-to-the-minute data from the traffic infrastructure and from other vehicles, you are able to promptly amend your route.

4.50 p.m.
You stop off at the doctor for a check-up. The electronic patient record tells him exactly what treatment the specialist has carried out and what medication has been prescribed.

7 p.m.
You had arranged to go for a run in the park, but the Air app indicates that the ozone levels there are currently too high. So you head a little farther out of town. The fitness tracker monitors your heart rate and uploads your data to the cloud, enabling you to keep track of your progress.

7.10 p.m.
On the way, you spot a broken slide in the children’s play area around the corner. You use an app to notify the council. And you get feedback straight away: the damage has already been reported, and the next day it is repaired.

8 p.m.
You have some official formalities to sort out. Thanks to your electronic ID, and access to the council’s online platform, you can do it all at home.

8.30 p.m.
You quickly throw your rubbish sack down the vacuum chute. The waste gets separated at the collection centre.

9 p.m.
You head off for a beer in town – first on foot, then on an electric bus and finally by tram. All the transport modes are precisely coordinated. An app displays all scheduled departures in real time.

11.30 p.m.
You prefer to walk the last stretch home. Smart street lamps not only light up more brightly as you pass by, they also illuminate the stretch up ahead as you walk.

12:00 p.M.
Goodnight!

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In order to provide growing urban populations with fresh vegetables, meat and fish at all times, a smarter system of food production is essential. At present, foods are transported long distances from their production locations to the consumers. Refrigeration and air transportation produce significant quantities of CO2. A new idea seeks to bring food production into the city, directly to the consumer. It is referred to as “urban farming”.

A high-rise for growing vegetables

As part of efforts to implement it, the engineers at the German national aeronautics and space research centre DLR are developing the “Vertical Farm 2.0” – a high-rise hothouse in which vegetables can be produced without using any soil. “In our production plant, we would grow the plants under precisely controlled optimum conditions,” explains Conrad Zeidler from the DLR Institute of Space Systems. Each level in the hothouse block could grow almost 630,000 kilograms of lettuce or more than 95,000 kilograms of tomatoes in a year. Despite this, the block’s footprint would be just 74 x 35 metres. On each approximately six-metre-high level and depending on the type of vegetables being grown, the crops could be cultivated on racks at different heights. The crops would be fed with a precisely dosed nutrient solution and nurtured by LED light. “It is important for us that our high-rise hothouse should be modular in design, meaning it can be adapted to the needs of the specific location,” says project manager Conrad Zeidler. If demand for lettuce is highest in Tokyo, and tomatoes are most popular in Moscow, the “Vertical Farm” concept should be easily adaptable to consumers’ wishes. But the principle always remains the same: that parameters such as humidity, light and nutrient supply should be optimally set. “That will make the crops grow more quickly, and therefore be more productive. We will even be able to influence the taste by adjusting the parameters.” The nutrients are fed to the crop in liquid form, so no soil is required. “So we have created a clean, self-contained cycle, meaning also that no pesticides or chemical insecticides are needed.”

Coriander from an underground railway tunnel

Steven Dring and Richard Ballard are already beyond the development stage. They have been building a farm in the heart of London for almost two years now. The unique feature: their “Growing Underground” farm is 33 metres below ground level, in a decommissioned air-raid shelter inside an underground railway tunnel. The farm is growing 12 different varieties of vegetables and herbs, including garlic, coriander and rocket, and consumes about 70 per cent less water than a comparable conventional farming operation. The Dutch, of course, are experts in managing the sea, so it makes sense that their urban farming projects are based on floating pontoons. They include the “Floating Farm” in Rotterdam: a 1,200-square-metre pontoon providing space for 40 cows. The 1,000 litres of milk they yield each day will be used directly on-site to make fresh dairy products such as yoghurt. The cows’ dung will be used to grow red clover, grass and lucerne – all of which will be fed back to the cows. The farm is scheduled to go into production in autumn 2016.

Fresh fish from the heart of the city

Urban farming is booming in Berlin too: ECF Farmsystems has implemented a combination of vegetable cultivation and fish farming. Germany’s capital is home to the world’s largest urban aquaponic farm. In the production of high-quality fish for the table, the water is enriched by valuable nutrients. The water is routed to the hothouse, where it supplies the crops with natural fertiliser. The plant, which was opened in 2015, is housed in an old maltings in the Schöneberg district of Berlin. It covers an area of 1,800 square metres, of which the hothouse takes up about 1,000 and the aquaculture about 400. The aim is to produce around 25 tonnes of perch and 30 tonnes of vegetables and herbs per year in an eco-friendly way. Thanks to the plant’s city centre location, the products can be sold to the consumer fresh, with no need for long transport distances and refrigeration.

Farming as a Service

Israeli start-up founder Erez Galonska has developed his own business model based on urban farming: “Farming as a Service”. His company Infarm develops vertical farms for various customers. A wide variety of different vegetable and salad crops are grown on vertically stacked racks under LED light and using hydroculture. The vertical farms are monitored and controlled by an app. Microsensors and data processing ensure that the crops grow in optimum conditions at all times. With Infarm, Galonska is looking to cultivate fresh, high-quality food at affordable prices, avoid waste and help preserve the environment. “By 2050, the global population will have increased from seven to nine million, of whom 86 per cent will be living in cities. To feed those people, we will need much more land than we actually have,” Erez Galonska asserts. The Infarm module is already being used by the Metro Group. The technology is scheduled to be marketed worldwide by early 2017.

(picture credits: Istockphoto: Floortje; Lindybug)

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There is not one truly Smart City in the world,” asserts Amitabh Kant, Secretary in the Indian government’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. “There are at best cities which have partial smart connectivity.” In India, the process of urbanisation has only just begun, but this trend is now advancing at a terrific pace. Some 433 million people – almost one third of India’s total population of 1.3 billion – currently live in cities. The United Nations predicts that over 400 million more will be city-dwellers by 2050. “In the past, you (ed: the West) could pollute the world. We cannot allow ourselves that luxury,” Kant concludes.

It all starts with the vision

This is also the context behind the vision of a “Digital India” promulgated by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It includes a plan to build 100 Smart Cities all over India. “Cities in the past were built on riverbanks. They are now built along highways. But in the future, they will be built based on availability of optical fibre networks and next-generation infrastructure.” So, in April 2015, the Indian government launched its “100 Smart Cities” programme. Initially at some 100 locations around India, Smart Cities will either be built entirely new on greenfield sites, or existing cities will be made more efficient and their quality of life enhanced.
In a country such as India, especially, the first pressing need is to establish the fundamentals for such development, including stable water supply and sewage systems, provision of electricity to all areas and public transport. Only once all of those infrastructure systems are in place will aspects of digital connectivity and information technology come into play, enabling the city to become smart. The official aim of the programme is to create efficient infrastructure in all respects, so as to make the cities more sustainable, and offering their residents an enhanced quality of life, making them more prosperous, healthier, and happier. To financial the initiatives, the Indian government is relying on Public Private Partnerships. An Indian commission of experts has estimated that capital investment of some 4.6 billion euros per year will be necessary for water supply, sewage systems and transport infrastructure alone. The total required investment is likely to be well above that. That’s why India has also invited foreign partners to help the country develop the Smart Cities. Contracts to this effect have already been signed for eight cities: three with Germany, three with the USA and one each with Spain and Singapore.

Implementation is in progress

98 potential Smart Cities were designated in August 2015. In January 2016, 20 cities were selected as the first to receive funding. Kochi is one of the cities which has set itself the aim of enhancing its residents’ quality of life through investment in public infrastructure and modern services. As one example, an integrated water-based transport system is being built with the aid of a loan from Germany’s KfW development bank. The plan is to create a municipal transport system combining waterways, buses, a metro system and transport methods such as auto rickshaws and bicycle hire. To ensure smooth running of the future transport system, the routes, timetables and ticketing will be coordinated and integrated. Seamless transportation will be aided by electric buses and rickshaws serving as shuttles to the ferries, as well as by the development of pedestrian footpaths and cycle routes. The ferries procured as part of the project will consume 20 per cent less fuel than the boats currently in use.
In Visakhapatnam, the focus is initially on launching an eGovernment system and a command and control centre. The control centre will converge various aspects of municipal administration, as well as incorporating services such as the city finance department and the police. “Surveillance of the beaches will also be part of the control centre’s remit,” states city council member Pravin Kumar. He regards the project as a milestone in the municipal administration of Visakhapatnam, commenting: “We are now in a position to implement the plans for the Smart City.” That also includes a reliable round-the-clock water supply, solar panels on the roofs of public buildings and solar modules for street lights.

Opportunities for companies from all over the world

The “100 Smart Cities” project also represents a major opportunity for industrial companies from all over the world. The key demand is to establish technology centres and create jobs in India itself. Sangeeta Prasad, CEO of the Mahindra World City organisation: “Without jobs, an interconnected system lacks the most important thing: a soul.”

(picture credits: Istockphoto: powerofforever, sabirmallick, Nikada; Photocases: spirelli)

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Valencia claims to be the first fully integrated Smart City in Spain. It is certainly a ground-breaker, having consolidated all its services on a Cloud platform. The Cloud can be used to monitor everything that happens in the city: from traffic, street lighting and car parks, to the weather. “City managers will know what is happening in the city in real time and can cancel automatic irrigation on rainy days, open traffic lights to let an ambulance through, switch on street lights on a cloudy day to improve visibility and notify citizens where there are free parking spaces, along with many other possibilities,” says Javier Castro, General Manager with Telefónica, citing just some of the possibilities. The company’s cloud-based IoT platform forms the basis of the Smart City solution. The system conforms to Fiware, a European open-source standard on which various Internet applications can be based.

All services in view

Valencia has consolidated a total of 45 different municipal services on the open platform. It has enabled the city to administer and run its telecommunications, energy, transport, emergency response and safety and security infrastructures more efficiently. The city has installed 350 new sensors for the purpose, as well as utilising mobility data from some 3,900 pre-installed sensors and 1,000 smart traffic light units, for example, in order to measure traffic density. All these municipal services are continuously monitored and networked via the platform, resulting in greater efficiency and a new quality of services. The ultimate aims are to cut public expenditure, make the administration more efficient and improve the services the city provides. The platform additionally provides the public with a centralised, permanently accessible resource to obtain information on municipal services. Data relating to noise pollution, waste disposal, water management, air quality, and many other indicators that a big city needs to have under control, are now recorded centrally. Some 90 per cent of the city’s official forms can be completed online and residents can also handle all formalities by paperless means through the online platform. A city app named App Valencia enables any resident to interact with the municipal services.

Knowing what the public think

“Digital technology is making the ‘Smart City’ more inclusive, improving its citizens’ comfort, solving problems more efficiently and making the most of the economic development opportunities it brings,” explains Laurent Auguste, Veolia Senior Executive Vice President Innovation and Markets. The French company offers cities special software tools: Urban Board provides decision-making aids for administrators by consolidating technical and social indicators. It links municipal services in the fields of mobility, safety and security, cleanliness and the environment with the expectations of the public. The tool analyses posts and comments in social media in order to survey public opinion. Based on the results, the administration can fine-tune the technical infrastructure of the city to better meet citizens’ expectations.

Interacting with the city administration

The Urban Pulse app provides residents with smartphone access to freely available information about their city in real time. It also enables them to use services such as car-sharing, or to travel more efficiently around the city by calculating the optimum connection between two points – incorporating all potential means of transport and always based on timetables updated in real time. They can get information on air pollution, enabling them to choose the cleanest means of transport. They can also use the app’s GPS functionality to meet up with friends more easily. And residents can use the app to report defective municipal facilities, bad smells, fly-tipping and other issues on the relevant website. The public thus has a means of communicating directly with the administration, and thus helping to improve the quality of life in their city.

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The interconnected, all-embracing communications infrastructure of the Smart City can also open up new opportunities in the health sector. As in public administration, the new technologies will aid and enhance patients’ access to healthcare services. At the same time, the electronic systems of the Smart City will interlink doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and health insurers even more closely, providing access to all necessary data. Seamless information flows will mean patients receive the care they need more quickly and in more personalised ways.

Patient data will be exchanged electronically

The basis of this is the electronic patient record. It is a database holding patients’ treatment data, details of their medication and other health data. For Austria’s capital Vienna, the introduction of such a database forms part of its overall Smart City strategy. Austria’s electronic patient record, known as “ELGA”, was first introduced into Vienna hospitals in late 2015. “By way of the ELGA portal, patients are able to view, print or save their own health data – whenever they want, and wherever they may be. That is an innovative feature, and it provides patients with more knowledge about their own health,” says Susanne Herbek, Managing Director and spokesperson of ELGA, in describing the benefits for patients. The online log also enables users to see exactly who accessed what information, or carried out what actions, when. Patients access their personal health record via an online portal, using their mobile phone signature or official ID card as identification. The ELGA database is divided into two parts: the identification of patients and healthcare providers, such as doctors or pharmacies and access control is managed centrally. The patient data itself – diagnostic reports or X-rays for example – is decentralised, held by the organisations who originate it. Information can only be used externally – that is, by other hospitals or clinical specialists – if the patient has given his or her consent. The introduction of the electronic patient record is just one step on the way to realising Vienna’s Smart City strategy, however: other elements include telemedicine services, in particular mobile monitoring devices.

Detecting illness earlier

Special eHealth applications on smartphones or wearables might be used to perform biomedical measurements to monitor a patient’s condition, for example. Thanks to intelligent analytical software, this data can be used to detect critical changes in a patient’s health at an early stage. The patient, his or her family, or the attending physician are alerted in the event of critical values being recorded. An ambulance can be called immediately in an emergency. The program then automatically relays the patient’s location and the critical data to the control centre. Routine monitoring of pre-defined vital signs data means patients can more often stay at home.

Improving elderly people’s lives

This is exactly what a project being run jointly by the city of Düsseldorf together with the private companies Telefónica and ZTE is seeking to achieve: the three partners are looking to develop a system for passive digital monitoring of the elderly. The system will track behaviour and movement by means of sensors, not by cameras, so the elderly patients will not feel as if they are being watched and their privacy can be better protected. An app provides family, friends or doctors with status reports several times a day, indicating whether all is well or not.
“The city of Düsseldorf wants to set a good example with the launch of this e-healthcare pilot. Digitisation is not just a slogan for us. On the basis of this pilot project, we want to show that digital solutions are for the benefit of all and can be used to contribute to tangible improvements in living conditions and, in particular, healthcare,” explains Dr Andreas Meyer-Falcke, Health Councillor, City of Düsseldorf. The technical side of the project is a cloud-based trend analysis platform from ZTE. The data collected by the sensors is transmitted over the mobile communications network via a gateway to ZTE’s data centre in Düsseldorf, which is operated under German IT security laws. Only persons authorised by the patients concerned – be they family, friends or care staff – are allowed to view the data.

(picture credits: Istockphoto: Mlenny)

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They are a particularly common sight in South America: gated towns – areas surrounded by high walls, accessible only through security gates. Reminiscent of forts in Hollywood western movies, they offer their residents a high degree of security, but the pay-off is a sense of being shut-in. The Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town near Tokyo takes a different approach: a smart approach. It has implemented the concept of the virtual gated town. The new-style security system aims to ensure a similarly high security level, but without enclosing the neighbourhood behind fences and gates.

Smart lifestyle for everyone

Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town – Fujisawa SST for short – is a project that has been developed and built by the Panasonic Corporation in conjunction with eight partners. By 2018, some 3,000 people will be living and working in the neighbourhood. In fact, the first of them moved in back in early 2014. A new feature in the development of the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town is that the designers focused their plans on creating a smart, comfortable lifestyle for the residents. The design and the technical infrastructure were all oriented to that goal. Along with sustainability and energy efficiency, security is a key aspect of the project.

Discreet security

The security provided is meant to be discreet, however. To that end, some 50 surveillance cameras, and LED street lights linked to them, have been installed at the entrance points to the neighbourhood, on public buildings and in less well-lit areas, as well as at major road junctions. They form a virtual fence. Staff at a security control centre keep watch on monitors, dispatching so-called “security concierges” to deal with any problems. The intent behind this is to assure a high level of security while retaining an open ambience.

Smart video analysis

It would be conceivable – though not actually implemented in Fujisawa – to supplement the cameras with a state-of-the-art video analysis system, as was deployed in the Fan Zones at the recent European football championships in France. A company called Evitech used a software program to analyse people’s behaviour based on surveillance images. Among its features, the program is able to count how many people enter and leave an area. Based on the data, the security control centre can decide at any time to close a location, so as to avoid over-filling, for example. Crowd movements are also recorded. Any unusual movement – such as one person going in the opposite direction to everyone else – can be quickly detected and reported to the security authorities.

Far-sighted street lighting

Fujisawa SST is not just reliant on cameras, however. It also seeks to enable all residents to identify potential hazards at an early stage. To aid them, the LED street lights are equipped with sensors which detect whether a pedestrian or vehicle is close by. If there is no one around, they automatically dim the light, thereby saving energy. When someone approaches, or a car drives by, the lights provide sufficient brightness to illuminate three or four steps ahead as well as the zone directly beneath them. The street lights and security cameras are also interconnected in a wireless network. This enables the system to switch the security lighting from lamp to lamp as the person or vehicle passes by, like passing on the baton in a relay race, illuminating the section of road up ahead.

Safe at home too

Fujisawa SST’s security concept also extends down to building and apartment level. Cameras featuring facial recognition technology cross-check people attempting to access a building against a stored list. If they are authorised to enter, the door is automatically opened. The home security system also detects any unauthorised intrusion or a fire, and alerts the residents in an emergency. The electronic surveillance is supplemented by security patrols. This creates an integrated network of systems and services providing security with no blindspots.

Three days’ emergency operation

The security system can also play a key role in the event of a disaster – not necessarily a rarity in Japan, where earthquakes are always a possibility. While the surveillance cameras and street lights help to prevent crime in normal circumstances, they switch softly to a disaster mode in an emergency. As well as maintaining monitoring of the overall situation by the cameras, some street lights are then kept permanently lit, and building entrance lights and room lamps additionally provide low but still usable street lighting. This is intended to provide residents with a sense of security at night when a disaster has occurred.
The power is supplied by batteries with three days’ capacity. The overall infrastructure is generally designed so that the high-tech city will be able to maintain key functions and basic services to residents – such as supplies of water, food and sanitation – until normality has been restored.

(picture credits: Istockphoto: tansy04)

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There are no refuse trucks clogging the streets of Gujarat International Finance Tec City – GIFT City for short – in India. Not because it doesn’t produce any waste. Quite the contrary: once completed, the city’s 25,000 homes, 100,000 people and over 500,000 jobs will be creating some 400 tonnes of rubbish every day. But instead of rubbish in bins placed out on the streets, the 25- to 60-storey buildings (of which there are more than 100 in the city) have been provided with waste disposal chutes. The waste tipped into them will not simply drop into a bin beneath. Instead, a vacuum system from Swedish company Envac will “suck” it at around 90 kilometres per hour into one of seven collecting stations. Public waste bins are also connected to the system. A level sensor detects when the bin is full. A valve beneath it then opens and the waste is automatically emptied into the vacuum system and conveyed to the collecting station. Once there, the organic waste is filtered out and the remaining recyclable waste is separated. The residual waste is converted by plasma gasification into a synthesis gas, which is in turn used to generate electricity for the Smart City. All that is left over is slag, and that can be used as a material in road-building, for example. The first development phase of the system has been operational since April 2015. The overall project is scheduled for completion by 2028. Ramakant Jha, Managing Director and Group CEO at GIFT City, comments: “GIFT City is India’s first Smart City, which is being developed as a global financial hub. Being a Smart City, most of the infrastructure we are developing will add value to the overall development and the automated waste collection system at city level will remove human interaction in the collection and disposal of waste.”

Sensors signal full waste bins

It is relatively easy to implement an underground vacuum tube system for waste disposal in a newly built city. In a long-standing urban environment, however, it would be a very expensive and complex undertaking. But such cities no longer have to miss out on smarter waste disposal: the municipalities of Eindhoven, Geldrop-Mierlo and Valkenswaard in the Netherlands, for example, have fitted out their 1,200 refuse containers with sensors from a company named BWaste. They signal to the control centre via a GPRS transmitter (with no SIM lock) when the container is almost full. A routing software program translates the information received into a route plan which guides the refuse trucks only to the containers that actually need emptying. Overfilled containers, with all the associated problems, are a thing of the past, and waste management contractor Cure Afvalbeheer is able to reduce the number of truck runs. Menno Beukema, Managing Director of BWaste, comments: “No other waste management corporation in the Netherlands – and maybe even in Europe – is using sensors to gauge the levels of all its refuse containers. Cure is a real pioneer in the field.”

The city as a raw material source

But efficient collection is only the first step in a smart waste management chain. Recycling is key. After all, as the world’s population continues to grow and becomes ever more prosperous, raw material resources are in increasingly short supply and so they have to be utilised more efficiently. “Urban mining” is the term used in this context, with cities being “mined” for their raw materials. This is feasible because the machines and other things we use on a daily basis – in our houses, in our vehicles – contain large quantities of raw materials. In a city like Vienna, for example, there are about 4,500 kilograms of iron, 340 kilograms of aluminium, 200 kilograms of copper, 40 kilograms of zinc and 210 kilograms of lead for every inhabitant. A modern-day 100 square-metre apartment contains some 7,500 kilograms of metals – roughly equivalent to about seven cars. If this man-made raw material store can be tapped into, it will not only help to conserve natural resources, but also reduce dependency on imports. That does, however, demand the development of new technologies to recover raw materials present in only small quantities, which are currently not economically viable to recycle. And in future, products should be designed right from the start to be recyclable by “urban miners”, enabling raw materials to be recovered more easily. That is also true in relation to new buildings such as those under development in GIFT City: They are conceived as “green buildings”, designed from the start in such a way that, at the end of their useful lives, as little material as possible lands on landfill sites, and can instead be easily re-used as building material.

(picture credit: Istockphoto: huseyintuncer, vm)

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London is serious about reducing air pollution, just as Mayor Sadiq Khan demonstrated with his dramatic statement: “With nearly 10,000 people dying early every year in London due to exposure to air pollution, cleaning up London’s toxic air is now an issue of life and death.” He is therefore pushing a plan of action, which includes the introduction of an “Ultra Low Emission Zone” by the year 2019, along with other measures. Vehicles that wish to drive here must comply with specifically defined, strict exhaust emissions standards – or pay a congestion charge of 12.50 pounds per day, which increases to 100 pounds per day for buses and lorries. A similar Ultra Low Emission Zone was planned under Khan’s predecessor Boris Johnson, the current UK Foreign Secretary. However, this was not going to be implemented until 2020.

Cleaning up the black cab

Another key point in the plan of action is to make buses and taxis cleaner. As a result, low-emission buses are to be used on particularly busy routes and the traditional black cab that all the tourists love is being modernised. Since the introduction of a maximum age for taxis, over 3,000 of the oldest models have been taken out of service; from 2018, only newly approved vehicles will be allowed. New hybrid taxis with a zero-emission driving mode have been developed in conjunction with automotive manufacturers. The GPS data from the vehicles is used to switch them to electric mode automatically when they enter the Ultra Low Emission Zone. With the new vehicles, it should be possible to reduce the emissions from black cabs by up to 100 per cent in central London and by 75 per cent in the rest of the city.

Always in the know

What’s more, the GLA (Greater London Authority) has introduced extensive provisions for measuring greenhouse gas emissions in 2012/2013. Consequently, London is the first city in the world to provide information about its direct and indirect urban emissions in line with the internationally recognised greenhouse gas balance and emissions report regulations. Around 150 sensor-measuring stations have been installed in London for this purpose. The data from these stations is available for companies and research institutes. Using the AirText app, London’s residents and visitors can view information about air pollution in real time, including pollen, UV radiation, temperature and air quality. AirText is a free service, which is provided by the company Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants in partnership with the boroughs, the GLA, Public Health England and the Environment Agency. The service also includes air pollution forecasts for the next three days.

More precise forecasts

Dr Ralph Grothmann from the central Siemens Corporate Technology Research department wants to increase the precision of forecasts for the levels of pollutants. He is using the data from the 150 measuring stations in London to develop forecast models based on neural networks. These models can predict the level of air pollution precisely and several days in advance. The highlight of this system is that it keeps learning. At the beginning, it does not know which variables affect one another and how, and the forecast therefore differs considerably from the actual measured emissions. During training, the program minimises the difference between its prognosis and the actual value in hundreds of iterations. It changes the weighting of the individual parameters and becomes more and more accurate. Today, the system is not only in the position to forecast the air pollution at 150 sites across the city for every hour over the next three days, it can also use the results to draw conclusions on what the main drivers of the predicted air pollution will be.

Pigeons over London

For Romain Lacombe, founder and CEO of Plume Labs, “predictive technologies will help us take back control of our environment”. The French start-up has developed a type of artificial intelligence which predicts the development of levels of pollutants in the air in cities across the world. You can view the result of the forecast, the “Plume Air Report”, on Android devices, iPhones or also Apple Watches. This should help joggers, cyclists, parents and commuters to keep away from highly polluted areas. Plume Labs is also using pigeons to increase awareness of the problem of air pollution: in March 2016, the company fitted ten pigeons with ultra-light sensor vests and let them fly around London for three days. The pollution sensors developed by Plume Labs measured the nitrogen dioxide and ozone values. The pigeon air patrol then reported the results back to interested residents via Twitter. The aim of this campaign was to find Londoners to use as beta testers for a wearable version of the ultra-light air measuring device. This beta test should enable the company to find out the extent to which the decentralised recording of air pollution can provide a suitable basis for decision-making for individual people as well as for health and environmental policies. This means that, in the future, each resident could contribute to providing an extensive overview of air pollution within a city – and do something valuable for their own health.

(picture credits: Metrocab)

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Reducing inner-city air pollution is one of the most significant environmental aims in cities. Electric vehicles make a significant contribution to this. Not only do they produce zero local emissions, they are also silent when on the move. The Dutch capital Amsterdam is taking the lead when it comes to electromobility, as Abdeluheb Choho, a councillor of Amsterdam, explains: “In view of the health of all of our residents and the attractiveness of our city, we need to make the air in Amsterdam cleaner. Over the next few years, electric transport will become an essential element in Amsterdam.” By 2018, there should be over 4,000 charging stations available for electric vehicles and by 2025, local public transport should even be completely free from emissions. The charging stations installed by Dutch power company Nuon are supplied with renewable energy from the Windpoort wind park, which is operated by Nuon – a subsidiary of Vattenfall – and Windgroep Holland. “Electrifying mobility is a key element in our efforts to lower CO2 emissions. As the power for the charging stations comes from renewable sources, we can really make a difference here for the city of Amsterdam,” Martijn Hagens, COO of Nuon, believes.

Increased intelligence for charging stations

The necessary charging infrastructure now includes so much more than just “sockets” – it can be networked with photovoltaic systems, used in smart homes and is able to bill for the charged energy, for example. For Keba’s latest charging station, the KeContact P30, its strengths lie in communication, as it provides different communication standards. This means that it can communicate with a central system thanks to the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP), which is of particular interest in public or semi-public areas. OCPP defines the industry standard for the online connection of charging infrastructure to central back-end systems to manage customer authentication and to monitor the system. As a result, it’s not just possible to monitor the system, but also to manage the load intelligently and bill for the energy used. The charging station is also equipped with a GSM modem to enable all charging stations to be networked wirelessly and to connect them to OCPP central systems.
The charging stations from the French company DBT-CEV are fitted with systems which allow geolocation and online reservations for charging points and which manage access and payment. What’s more, the latest quick charging stations from DBT-CEV fully charge electric vehicles in just two to three hours. “By aggressively expanding the number of quick charging points across Europe, we give the opportunity to EV drivers to use their electric vehicle as any other regular car,” explains Hervé Borgoltz, Chairman of DBT-CEV.

Contactless transfer of power

Nevertheless, it would be considerably more convenient if you could charge your electric vehicle contactlessly via the air rather than having to connect it to whichever charging station using the cable. The physical principle behind this is called electromagnetic induction. When charging inductively, the power is transferred to a coil installed in the ground via the magnetic field. The counterpart is located on the underbody of the vehicle. Systems like this are already in use in some cities – so far, they have been used primarily for local buses. The electric buses in the Belgian city of Bruges, for example, use inductive charging. The charge procedure with the Primove charging system from Bombardier lasts a maximum of twelve minutes. With a fully charged battery, the e-bus can drive for around 45 minutes without having to recharge. After a few circuits on the route, the e-bus then comes back to the charging station for recharging. The route is operated by two buses on weekdays and one on Saturdays.
So if you no longer have a cable, why not go one step further? In England, for example, tests have been carried out since 2015 to determine the extent to which electric and hybrid vehicles can be charged inductively while driving via charging coils integrated into the roads. However, for this to work on a large scale, the technology still has to overcome some difficult hurdles. It will have to be able to cope with a much higher number of vehicles covering greater distances, while offering a high degree of efficiency.

(picture credits: Bombardier; Unsplash: Thaddaeus)

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