Smart and Energy Efficient Buildings
A good example of a smart city that is prioritizing sustainability is Taipei. The city’s ambitions are to become one of the world’s smartest cities with Initiatives including greener and smarter buildings. The city has gradually incorporated data analysis and real-time IoT sensors into its operations, paving the way for decarbonization. Thanks to their use of technology, Taipei has so far managed to reduce its carbon emissions by 25,000 tons, which has not only led to a more sustainable city, but has saved the local government NT $265 million (USD $9.5 million).
The “IoT powered smart building” takes in the entire ecosystem of a building, using features in concert with one another to create a cohesive system, as opposed to disparate features. A truly energy-efficient building should not only consider the metrics of energy usage but the people who will be using the building and their needs when they go about their work. This way, space can be maximized for efficiency, which will in turn decrease the demand for energy resources. With this in mind, individual features such as LED lighting and wastewater management can be integrated smoothly into the design of a building.
Smart Water Management
Smart IoT solutions can be implemented in a smart city ecosystem to prevent water leakage, monitor water quality, and consumption, and create smart irrigation systems. Because of poor management and configuration, a conventional irrigation system wastes on average around 30% of the waterused. A recent research describes a possible IoT city implementation scenariothat aims to save up to 34% of water usage when harnessing data from sensors for temperature, humidity, and soil moisture, or up to 26% using only temperature inputs.
Smart Transportation and Traffic Lights
Public transportation and infrastructure equipped with sensors to capture data on scale can be a revolutionary step for cities to get smarter and more sustainable. Sensor technology and IoT is estimated to reduce commute times by approximately 30 minutes. By combining already existing traditional traffic light technology with IoT technology, smart cities can help manage vehicle and pedestrian traffic intelligently and even reduce emissions by optimizing vehicle travel time.
Smart Air Quality Management
An interconnected ecosystem of IoT sensors can be used to collect pollution data from the entire city and predict accurate emission trends. This can allow local authorities to use data-driven insights to come up with strategies to reduce emissions like low-emission zones, speed limits, or designing public transportation infrastructure around observable trends in emissions.
There are already dozens of smart cities that can be considered exemplary in terms of innovation. However, every city experiences its own issues, so each of them requires customized solutions. Sustainability solutions driven by IoT consolidates critical data to help monitor and manage environmental impact. Governments and organizations can easily record, report, and reduce their environmental impact using actionable insights.
If you are on a path to introduce smart and sustainable solutions in a building, city or site, get in touch with TraceSafe’s IoT and sustainability experts for a free consultation today.