One of the most promising aspects of energy storage is that it’s used to make an existing system more efficient.  If you think of the grid as the system, then energy storage can help make generation, transmission, distribution, and even customer energy use more efficient.

How many different systems are there? The grid is the most obvious example.  Microgrids are another type of system.  A more relevant system to the average consumer is a transportation system.  And there are several examples of companies in the energy storage space targeting transportation systems. 

How does it work? An energy storage system (specifically, a battery) is paired with an electricity-powered train system; the battery captures the energy from regenerative braking, just as the battery in a hybrid-electric vehicle does (which is part of the reason why these vehicles have high gas mileage).  In the case of transportation systems, the battery is situated not on the train itself, but at a station the train travels through.

Hitachi is supplying two 1 megawatt lithium ion battery systems to the Seoul Metro in Korea, after successfully trialing what the company calls the B-CHOP system in a train station in Kobe, Japan.  In this case, the batteries will collect energy from passing (and braking) trains and use that energy to run other electric trains on the system.  The goal is to reduce the overall energy consumption of the electric trains passing through the station.

NGK Insulators has also installed several sodium sulfur battery systems at rail stations in Japan, although it is not clear whether these systems are being used to capture energy from the braking trains themselves, or to manage how much the stations and trains are taxing the grid.  A subtle difference in applications, but an important one. 

SEPTA (Philadelphia) is trialing a battery from SAFT at a busy rail station and is using it to store and release energy. The transport agency is also partnering with Viridity Energy (also based in Philadelphia) to participate in demand response programs and the and frequency regulation market.  Thankfully for SEPTA, PJM Interconnection – the independent system operator for the region – is one of the most progressive system operators in the country and allows even relatively small assets (like a modestly sized battery) to participate in the frequency regulation market.  Programs like these could make railways and urban transit systems even more efficient ways of transporting large numbers of people.

As I mentioned in my last smart city blog, one of the biggest challenges to realizing the smart city vision is finding financial models that can enable the transformation in city operations.  This recent Climate Group report highlighted the opportunity offered to cities through better exploitation of one of their most critical and under used assets: data.  The most obvious use of city data is for the city authorities and service providers to become better at collecting, analyzing and acting on information about how the city works.  While public sector organizations – not only city authorities – have gone a long way in creating modern IT-based front- and back-office organizations, they have generally been much slower than the private sector to use the power of data analysis to understand how to improve those processes.  This is now changing, and city authorities are beginning to understand the power of data analytics.  But even with cloud computing and software-as-a-service models helping to reduce costs and speed up deployment, data analytics and advanced information management systems still involve a significant upfront investment, and payback depends on finding efficiencies and improvements in services.  A more radical – but complementary – approach is to open the data to third parties to allow them to provide new services and new insights.  This is one reason why cities are at the forefront of the movement for open government data.

The momentum behind open government data gained significant impetus with the release of President Obama’s “Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government” in January 2009.  This paved the way for the launch of data.gov in May 2009, a web portal that today provides almost 400,000 raw and geospatial datasets and more than 1,000 web apps.  The U.K. government launched data.gov.uk in April 2010.  Both the U.N. and the World Bank are now working to encourage governments around the world to adopt open data policies.  As well as spurring innovation, opening up government data is seen as a means for tackling corruption, increasing transparency and improving accountability.  In July 2011, Kenya became the first developing country to have an open government data portal.

Trying to put specific value on such data is difficult, but a report from the European Commission suggests that opening up public-sector information could be worth up to €140 billion (almost $200 billion) to the EU economy each year.  Cities have been among the most proactive governments promoting the possibilities for open data.  In the United States, cities like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago have launched open data portals, as have London and Barcelona and Helsinki.  A number of cities have also launched developer events and competitions to encourage the creation of new applications that can then be made available on the city website. 

Transparency, Accountability

So why is this important to the development of the smart city concept? Most importantly, opening up data to new uses is a way of refreshing our ideas about the city: how it works and how it could work better.  It also frees up the potential for further exploitation of new technologies such as smartphones and sensor networks.  Open data can also provide a boost to the city as center for software development and other digital industries, as the Mayor of New York has recognized with his promotion of NYC Digital. 

Chicago provides a good example of what can be achieved.  In January, the city launched a new web site, Chicago Shovels, which keeps residents informed in real-time about the activity of the city’s snow ploughs when the blizzards hit.  In future, it will provide space for coordinating community-based snow-clearing teams.  It also provides additional applications developed by third-parties using the city’s open data sets.  Twoinch.es, for example, alerts drivers of winter parking bans, while WasMyCarTowed.com uses the City’s towed and relocated vehicle data to reconnect owners with their cars.  Sites like Chicago Shovels are not just providing new services, they are also making new aspects of a city’s operation transparent.

The CTO of Chicago has written an excellent blog on the city’s open data platform.  In the post he describes the four principles that have driven the program: transparency, accountability, analysis, and open data.  Looking to the future, he also talks about the emerging concept of the “city-as-platform” – an idea I will examine in more detail in my next blog.

Last week saw the official unveiling of the Hiriko electric car in Brussels, in front of the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso.  A trial manufacturing run of the vehicle is set to begin at Vitoria Gasteiz, outside Bilbao, next year and the first models are expected to reach the market in 2013.  Several cities have apparently already shown interest including Berlin, Barcelona, Malmö and San Francisco. 

Developed by a consortium of seven companies based in the Basque region of Spain, Hiriko Driving Mobility is taking forward a design for a CityCar first produced at MIT.  The Hiriko has several city-friendly features, but the most striking is its size and the fact that it folds up to fit into the smallest of urban parking spaces.  At only 2.5m (100 inches) in length unfolded, when crunched up for parking it takes a measly 1.5m (60 inches) in space.  The vehicle’s wheels also turn at right angles to help sideways parking in tight spaces and the lack of conventional doors mean that you can still get in and out the vehicle.

The transport challenges facing city leaders were the subject of some of the most interesting sessions at last November’s Intelligent City Conference, in Hamburg.  Amongst lengthy discussions about multi-model transport strategies and the pros and cons of road charging schemes, several presenters raised the importance of rethinking the role of the private car within our cities.  This is not only about the need to encourage EVs, or to accelerate the shift to public transit systems, but also to foster new thinking about car design.  We need to design cars that meet the needs of cities, several speakers declared, and move away from shaping our cities to accommodate cars. 

That’s the basic idea behind the Hiriko (which means “urban” in Basque).  The developers say that it’s well-suited to electric car-sharing schemes, similar to those already in place in San Diego and other cities.  Other options might include the use of advertising to pay for the car rental, or sponsorship by hotels, restaurants or other local businesses.  Operators and city transport authorities might also consider time-of-use pricing or incentives to encourage the use of alternative pick-up and drop-off points during busy times.

The Hiriko may horrify lovers of classic car design, but for anyone interested in the future of urban transport it offers some intriguing possibilities. 

The news that the 2012 TED Prize has been awarded for the first time to an idea, The City 2.0, is further evidence of the importance of cities in addressing global issues of sustainability, economic development and technology innovation.  The TED Prize is linked to the acclaimed TED conferences and video series promoting ground-breaking technical, scientific and cultural ideas.  According to the prize director, the idea behind the award is to challenge the TED Community “to embrace radical collaboration on one of the most pressing issues we face: how to build sustainable, vibrant, working cities.”

The TED announcement is just one of series of new studies, events and initiatives all focused on taking sustainable urban development programs to the next level.  Eric Bloom has already covered the recent IBM-sponsored smart city gathering in Rio de Janeiro.  He highlighted the innovative projects in Rio that are addressing systemic challenges and preparing the city for the arrival of the World Cup and the Olympic games.  The UN has provided another useful example of how major events can propel new thinking about city design and development.  It has pulled together lessons for sustainable cities drawn from the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, which had  the theme of Better City, Better Life.  The Shanghai Manual, A Guide for Sustainable Urban Development, provides a 300 page overview of the opportunities for cities to take new approach to issues such as economic development, transport, building, waste management and the use of ICT.  The manual is part of the UN’s attempt to educate and train city authorities around the world on how they can make their cities a positive force for economic development and environmental sustainability.

The core themes of the UN study were also the common topics of conversation at the Intelligent City Expo, which I attended in November.  Over three days in Hamburg – European Green Capital 2011 – city managers and political leaders, not-for-profit organizations and suppliers debated the way forward for cities.  There was general agreement that a smart city is one that combines a commitment to sustainability with continued economic and social development supported by the innovative use of technology.  Much of the discussion focused on the practical challenges of developing the political leadership, citizen engagement, and new operating models that enable the transformation to a smart city. 

One of the biggest challenges is how to provide the financial underpinning for that transformation.  In fact, the first question asked at the conference to the opening panel was “Who pays?”  I chaired the panel that addressed this topic on the second day of the conference, comprising representatives from European investment bodies, including the European Investment Bank, and also from the private equity sector.  In Europe at least, investment funds are available for trials and pilots, but taking projects to large-scale deployment is still uncharted territory in most cases.  It’s also clear that the private sector is eager to find new ways to work with city authorities but they need to find the right service and right business models. 

One area of growing interest is the value of information and data assets in helping to reimagine the way the city operates.  This issue has been taken up by The Climate Group, in a new report on smart city economics, Information Marketplaces: the New Economics of Cities.  The report, produced with the help of Accenture, Arup and the University of Nottingham, examines the potential for cities to use untapped data and information assets to improve decision making, make better use of city infrastructure and develop new forms of  cooperation with the private sector and with citizens.  It’s a useful contribution to the growing debate as to how city data and information assets can provide a technical and financial basis for smart city transformation.   The challenge for cities is to understand what data they should make available, in what form and above all what partnerships they need to forge to ensure that that hidden value is realized.