This week’s Smart City roundup features Australia’s need to focus on smart infrastructure, Canada’s lead in the race for smart infrastructure deployments, fresh smart city solutions to be featured in Ecobuild 2016, and India’s new list of cities included in the 100 Smart Cities project.

Australia’s need to focus on smart infrastructure

The population in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne is set to double by 2050 and now officials are looking at how to better approach infrastructure planning and operation to accommodate this growth.

Professor Bob Williamson, CEO of NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence, submitted his recommendation to the House of Representatives Inquiry into the Smart Infrastructure in Sydney to focus on Smart ICT for its infrastructure needs. By utilizing Smart ICT, Williamson purports that Australia will be able to forecast demand more accurately, thereby saving money on maintenance as well as potentially decongesting roads, freeways and public transport services. It is also predicted that investing in smart infrastructure could reduce travel times by 40 percent.

Canada leads smart infrastructure deployment

If Australia is still contemplating the importance of smart infrastructure, Canada on the other hand is leading in this sector. According to reports, there is increased in awareness across the country regarding the benefits of smart infrastructure such as smarter electrical grid systems. Factories in Canada heavily rely on coal for their operations but are now looking to embrace advanced electrical grid technologies such as renewable energy, automated distribution, and advanced battery storage. One example is Canada’s city of Ontario, which has recently accomplished moving to a coal-free electrical grid.

Canada also sees the benefit of smart grids as it consists of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources that can help identify and meet energy demands. Also, with advanced technologies, demand-response programs can be automated which allows savings in energy bills.

Ecobuild 2016 to feature smart city solutions

Ecobuild, one of the largest and longest running sustainable design and construction events, announced that smart city solutions will be a new feature at next year’s event, which will be held from March 8-10, at London’s ExCeL. This is in response to the demand of visitors who wanted to see smart city solutions at the event.

The feature will be a part of the Energy section and will include “live room sets demonstrating how smart technology including controls, metering, intelligent lighting and connected appliances can work together to bring greater efficiency in real world settings. As well as a domestic living room, visitors will be able to explore a retail environment, office, garage and bathroom to see what the latest intelligent building technology can deliver.”

India’s list for 100 Smart Cities project

Minister for Urban Development Venkaiah Naidu released the list which includes 98 cities in India. The list includes states and the cities that are included in the project and it was noted that cities from the states of Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra dominated the list with 13, 12 and 10 cities being nominated from these states respectively.

The states of Jammu and Kashmir have yet to nominate their cities thus there are only 98 cities on the list.

The nominations is just the first state of the 100 Smart Cities project and the second stage will happen after the list has been finalized. During the second stage, each of the nominees will be given Rs 2 crore or about $300k each by the government to prepare their “smart city proposals”. After submitting the proposals, 20 cities will be selected to continue with their projects and will be given Rs 100 crore or about $15 million each by the government to continue its development. It is expected that the government of India will spend about Rs 3 lakh crore (about $45 billion) over the next five years on the smart city project.

Photo by Premshree Pillai