Smart Buildings and Smart Cities to Take Center Stage

While clean energy projects have faced budgetary and policy challenges, the most effective efforts to reduce carbon emissions may no longer come from building new generation resources.

The Memoori consultancy believes the short term solution to achieving a low carbon economy in the 21st century is by putting lot more effort into reducing CO2 emissions in buildings and cities.

Memoori expects that in 2014 governments will take a route through providing more attractive financial inducements for all those that install plant equipment and controls which reduce energy consumption in buildings and combine this with more stringent regulatory targets. This can be achieved through private investment with technologies that are now well proven, and a capable competitive supply structure that can deliver. Further support is coming from Smart Cities. As cities across the world face aging infrastructures and dwindling financial resources, city governments will increasingly undertake initiatives to manage these challenges such as Smart Grid technologies for grid modernization; outage management; and integration of a variety of power generation sources, including on-premises generation, and consumer energy management solutions.

In 2013 the Memoori consultancy published three world reports that show the practical benefits and profitability of installing:  Building Energy Management Systems and Enterprise Energy Management Software; the Market for Connecting Smart Grid with BEMS; and the Business of LED Lighting in Buildings.

The one thing in common they can achieve in many cases a payback within two years, their cost and technical risk is minimal compared with renewable power and they are independent and can be installed today. They can also achieve more long-term benefits through their connectivity with each other and through Smart Cities, wringing out further added value services to offset the investment cost and further reduce CO2 emissions.