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The 1st SmartCitiesCouncil® - Europe Stakeholders’ Assembly recently took place in Dublin, Ireland on the 9th of November. The day’s theme was Accelerating your innovation economy and focused on how smart city solutions can advance innovation and...
Article - 11/21/2018
Active Region(s): Europe
Category: Economic development, Energy, Telecommunications, Transportation, Waste management, The Enablers, Citizen engagement, Connectivity, Data management, Finance and procurement, Policy and leadership, Smart City Examples, SCC Spotlight Cities
Scroll down for quick news takes and developments involving Smart Cities Council Partners.Continental collaborates on autonomous vehicle R&D in Singapore Council Global Lead Partner Continental will collaborate with Singapore-based AV...
Article - 11/15/2018
Active Region(s): North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Security and privacy
Energy costs for low-income renters and affordable housing owners are disproportionately high. While there are programs to help them, they often can't help enough to make a difference — or help all of the people who need assistance. As cities work...
Article - 01/11/2018
Active Region(s): North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
The Smart Cities Council has always said cities shouldn't go it alone when developing their smart city planning and implementation strategies: learn from the successes of those cities that have already made the commitments and taken the risks to...
Article - 10/26/2017
Active Region(s): North America
Category: Energy, Telecommunications, Transportation, Analytics, Citizen engagement, Connectivity
Bhopal, a vibrant economic centre of Madhya Pradesh, has launched many innovative smart solutions. The city recently has launched its first innovative public private partnership (PPP)-based smart poles and intelligent streetlights project under the...
Article - 07/31/2017
Active Region(s): India
Category: Energy, Public safety and security, Citizen engagement
Coimbatore with a decadal growth rate of around 20% is a rapidly growing city in the state of Tamil Nadu. Known as Manchester of India, the city is undertaking numerous initiatives towards improving basic services and quality of life of citizens....
Article - 07/26/2017
Active Region(s): India
Category: Energy, Public safety and security, Transportation, Waste management, Water and wastewater, Citizen engagement
The smart cities movement has been part of the arc of technological evolution. Now providing a framework for more liveable, workable and sustainable city making, the smart cities movement promotes these outcomes through the application of...
Article - 05/23/2017
Active Region(s): Australia - New Zealand
Category: Energy, Water and wastewater, Citizen engagement, Data management, Policy and leadership
As long as you provide people with reliable power, that’s good enough, right? Not anymore. A new study finds millennials want much more from their power utility. And if you don’t provide it, you could end up losing their business.One of the demands...
Article - 08/09/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement
Many cities have energy efficiency at the top of their smart city project list. And no wonder — it improves the environment while saving money while setting an example for the private sector. But setting energy efficiency goals is the easy part. How...
Article - 05/18/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Analytics, Citizen engagement
While citizen engagement and education are key responsibilities for smart cities transformations, many cities would likely welcome some help with educating their citizens in the value and benefits smart cities can bring.And finding the well-trained...
Article - 04/05/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Water and wastewater, Citizen engagement
It's an old bromide that electric power customers will always resist a rate hike. But as I travel around, I'm seeing pockets of change, especially in Europe and on both coasts of the United States. In Europe, cities already have aggressive carbon...
Article - 01/27/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement
There's a dangerous misperception about fighting climate change. Most people assume that it will cost millions if not billions. In reality, many climate measures SAVE money. That's because many of the best tactics involve saving energy, thereby...
Article - 01/14/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Connectivity
For more than a hundred years, the electric power industry worked exclusively on the supply side. When demand grew, they simply built more power plants. But electricity demand is subject to severe peaks (think of a hot summer day where everybody's...
Article - 11/11/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement
The growth of renewable energy and distributed generation, the drop in demand for electricity in Europe, enhanced energy efficiency and other factors have left Italian utility Enel, a Council Lead Partner, with a large number of power plants that...
Article - 09/25/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Energy, Citizen engagement
By Paul Augustine West Monroe PartnersSmart cities continuously look for ways to become cleaner, more efficient, and more secure. They also seek opportunities to actively engage their citizens in this effort. One area of focus is transitioning to...
Article - 08/31/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement
At first glance, it certainly looks like an unusual approach to solving the problem of providing electricity to the remote, isolated villages and communities of the world: bringing young grandmothers who live in those areas to a training college in...
Article - 08/21/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Upward Mobility, Economic development, Energy, Citizen engagement
By Jenny Roehm Schneider ElectricIn a digital world, where more devices than ever are connected and consumers want information right at their fingertips, home energy management solutions are a way to take control of their home energy use with...
Article - 05/15/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Instrumentation and control
Speaking at a smart cities conference last year, an Israeli Energy and Water Ministry official declared that the primary goal for smart cities should be to accommodate the needs of all citizens rather than be a collection of smart technologies. In...
Article - 04/01/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is out with its latest list spotlighting government innovators. In all, the 2015 Bright Ideas program recognizes 124 innovative...
Article - 02/20/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Economic development, Energy, Public safety and security, Citizen engagement, Connectivity
As cities around the world face climate change mandates, energy efficiency should be a no-brainer. It's something everyone can help with, including everyday citizens as this story illustrates.If you were to ask most people, they would probably tell...
Article - 01/23/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Analytics, Citizen engagement
I've long said the utility model is seriously broken and in need of a 21st Century overhaul. So I was intrigued to hear Silver Spring Networks, a Council Associate Partner and major player in the smart grid space, announce that Hawaii Electric...
Article - 01/15/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Connectivity, Instrumentation and control
There’s no doubt that a developer’s job is harder than ever. Populations are exploding and becoming increasingly urban. Developers have to build enough housing while building a sense of community and minimizing the environmental impact.Old methods...
Article - 01/09/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Citizen engagement, Connectivity
It’s hard to imagine a time when electric utilities have had to evolve faster. The Edison Foundation Institute for Electric Innovation, a member of the Council's Advisory Board, has gathered insights from utilities across the United States as they...
Article - 12/19/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Connectivity
Scroll down for short takes from Council members…S&C Electric and Space-Time Insight win innovation awards: Council Lead Partner S&C Electric Co. won the Energy Storage category in the 2014 Fierce Innovation Awards competition. Winners were...
Article - 11/05/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Computing resources
Council Lead Partner National Grid is rolling out a new energy management platform to some of its gas and electric customers in the northeastern United States, helping them to cut their energy costs and helping the utility better manage the load...
Article - 07/30/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Connectivity
By Eric WoodsNavigant ResearchThe latest report on smart cities from Navigant Research forecasts that annual smart city technology investment will reach $27.5 billion by 2023. Total cumulative investment over the next decade...
Article - 07/16/2014
Active Region(s): Main
Category: Energy, Analytics, Citizen engagement, Interoperability
Fort Collins, Colorado is the first city in the world to offer a new mobile web app from Council Associate Partner Siemens to its utility customers. One utility official calls it the "heart and soul" of their smart grid efforts.The Energy Engage...
Article - 07/16/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Connectivity, Citizen engagement strategies and tools
To illustrate how smart grids shape smart cities, an EDF pilot in Carros, France intends to turn passive residential and business consumers into active “pro-sumers" – or producer-consumers. They're participants in the multi-dimensional Nice Grid...
Article - 02/19/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Instrumentation and control
The European Commission is spending 4 million euros to fund a three-year project to create a neighborhood-scale energy management platform. Described as a "service platform," the system will be piloted first in Seville, Spain followed by Lizzanello...
Article - 09/19/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Instrumentation and control, Policy and leadership
By Jesse BerstThe smart cities market took a major step towards mainstream status with an announcement this morning from Smart Cities Council Lead Partner Microsoft. The company is launching a global initiative labeled "CityNext." The company-wide...
Article - 07/09/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Smart City Concepts, Built environment, Energy, Transportation, Citizen engagement, Interoperability
This story focuses on the power generated by energy-harvesting floor tiles. I think there's an even more important story -- the data they generate. Right now it is relatively easy to generate information about automobile traffic, but much harder to...
Article - 04/30/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Telecommunications, Citizen engagement, Data management, Instrumentation and control
When Kansas City Board of Public Utilities installed a water and electric AMI system in 2013, in addition to improving service and reliability, they hoped to empower customers to be wiser energy and water consumers. That goal prompted staff to make...
Resources - 06/14/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Energy, Water and wastewater, Citizen engagement, Connectivity, Instrumentation and control
The West Monroe Partners' 2015 Customer Effort Index in Utilities study found, as this white paper explains, that utilities gain more credibility and support by proactively designing customer interactions as “effortless” as possible across channels...
Resources - 06/10/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement
Listen in as Laurent Schmitt of Alstom Grid, a Council Lead Partner, joins Gilles Rocchia of Socomec and Christine Pellen of RTE in a discussion of smart grid progress in France, where pilots and projects are getting citizens involved in smarter...
Resources - 01/12/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Instrumentation and control
To meet greenhouse gas reduction goals, the city of Boston sought to reduce energy consumption through efficiencies and behavior change. Read in this case study how Boston leveraged Schneider Electric's StructureWare software for citywide energy,...
Resources - 01/07/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement
Building smarter, more sustainable cities requires the support of public, private and civic stakeholders. Envision Charlotte is charting a new course. By taking a holistic and integrated approach to engaging these disparate groups and demonstrating...
Resources - 07/04/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Built environment, Energy, Water and wastewater, Analytics, Citizen engagement
In the interview below, George Karayannis, VP of U.S. Smart City Solutions for Council Associate Partner Schneider Electric, discusses technologies that help make cities smarter, more efficient, sustainable, resilient and more livable and how they...
Resources - 03/18/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Energy, Citizen engagement, Instrumentation and control