Schneider Electric Announces the Creation in Barcelona of Its First Center of Excellence Focused on Smart Solutions for Cities

Rueil-Malmaison (France), July 24, 2014 – Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management, announced the creation in Barcelona (Spain) of its first Center of Excellence focused on smart solutions for cities. The announcement was made by Julio Rodriguez, Executive Vice-President Global Operations at Schneider Electric, during a ceremony in the presence of Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona, on July 22.

 

A view of the future Schneider Electric Center of Excellence in Barcelona

 

The mission of Schneider Electric’s Center of Excellence will be to gather the knowledge of the company on solutions for smart cities, thanks to the experience, the results and the successful Smart City solutions established worldwide. The center will offer solutions to the cities which will have economic and social impact, bringing concrete benefits for citizens. The work of the Center of Excellence will enable to guide and support the cities on their way towards a new paradigm in efficiency management, habitability and sustainability thanks to the implementation of smart solutions and the development of new business models.

 

“In the next 40 years we are going to experience an urban technological revolution. The ongoing concentration of the population towards urban cores and the growing shortage of resources will have important repercussions on mobility, air quality, healthcare service, etc., said Julio Rodríguez, Executive Vice-President Global Operations at Schneider Electric. Today Schneider Electric is working with over 200 cities in smart management projects. With this Center of Excellence we are enhancing our capacity to provide advanced solutions to the cities.”

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For more information, see the complete press release or visit the Schneider Electric Smart Cities webpage. Schneider Electric acquired Invensys in January.

Re-imagining Cities

The New Cities Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to making cities across the world more inclusive, dynamic and creative. Created in 2010, it seeks to incubate, promote and scale urban innovations through collaborative partnerships between government, business, academia and civil society. Schneider Electric is a Corporate Member of the New Cities Foundation.

The Foundation’s flagship event is the New Cities Summit which in past years has been held in Paris, France (2012) and São Paolo, Brazil (2013). New Cities Summit 2014 was held last month, attracting over 800 participants from 51 countries to Dallas, Texas, USA. This year, the Summit's theme was Re-imagining Cities: Transforming the 21st Century Metropolis, and nearly 100 speakers took part (event press release).

An event E-book (pdf, 7.5 MB) provides summaries of all sessions as well as links to related videos on the New Cities Foundation YouTube page, including these:

• Highlights (4:18)
• Keynote - Future Trends in the Century of Cities (13:44) - by Parag Khanna, Managing Partner Hybrid Reality
• Panel - Beyond the Smart City: Towards a New Paradigm (1:02:19) - panelists include Laurent Vernerey, Executive Vice-President, North America Operations at Schneider Electric

New ISO Standard Addresses City Performance Indicators

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced a new standard last week: ISO 37120:2014 – Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life. The new standard is applicable to any city, municipality or local government desiring to measure its performance in a comparable and verifiable manner, irrespective of size, location, or level of development. The standard covers a number of areas, only some of which are: energy, environment, governance, safety, solid waste, transportation, wastewater, and water and sanitation.

The standard was launched during the Global Cities Summit organized by the University of Toronto's Global City Indicators Facility, one of the organizations involved in its development. Also launched at the Global Cities Summit was the World Council on City Data, a new entity that will build an international platform for open, comparable, and ISO-standardized data for participating cities from around the world.

Municipal Financing Tools for Smart City Projects

The Smart Cities Council, an industry coalition to improve the livability, workability and sustainability of the world’s cities, recently announced the Smart Cities Financing Guide. This new resource helps cities understand the financing options available for investments in smart technologies. Developed for the Council by the Center for Urban Innovation at Arizona State University, the Financing Guide outlines 28 of the most promising financing tools for urban infrastructure enhancements, including some techniques that do not require any upfront money from a city. It “Knowledge of financial instruments and the processes to engage in sustainable financing of technologies is vital, yet few know how to navigate these complexities”offers criteria for evaluating financing options and allows city leaders to differentiate which approach is best for their project and community.
 

The Financing Guide is part of the Council’s premium resource library, which also includes the Smart Cities Readiness Guide that provides 27 best practices for launching a smart city initiative. Both Guides are available on the Smart Cities Council website for free, following a very brief registration.

Schneider Electric, which acquired Invensys in January 2014, is an Associate Partner of the Smart Cities Council.

Take a Quick Tour of the Smart City Council's Readiness Guide

The Smart Cities Council is an industry coalition that seeks to accelerate the growth of smart cities worldwide. It does this by providing city leaders with access to technology counsel, financial tools, policy frameworks, visibility campaigns, and advocacy. The Council currently includes more than two dozen leading smart city practitioners and an extensive collection of independent advisors. A short video introducing the Smart Cities Council is available here (< 4 min). Invensys joined the Council as an Associate Partner last year, and we recently renewed our partnership, this time as Schneider Electric who acquired Invensys in January 2014.

The first comprehensive, vendor-neutral smart city handbook for city leaders and planners - the Smart Cities Readiness Guide - was developed by the Council. The Guide enables city leaders to assess their current state of technology and its readiness to become a smart city. The 281-page document is available for free download on the Smart City Council's website.

The Council has now released a Readiness Guide "Quick Tour" that highlights in just 13 pages how cities around the world are enhancing operations and improving citizen services with the implementation of smart technologies and how the Readiness Guide helps. The document includes at a high level what a smart city is, the smart city framework, what technology is used and what problems it can solve, the power of smart integration, how smart cities change the game, and how to get started - creating a smart city roadmap. It concludes with answers to a number of frequently asked questions about the Readiness Guide.

To learn more, download the Quick Tour.

Managing Facility Operations for 140 Buildings Across Multiple Campuses at the University of Strasbourg in France

The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France, is among Europe’s foremost research universities and is the second-largest university in France with some 43,000 students. The University’s Energy Department needed to better manage facility operations for 140 buildings on multiple campuses spread across 60 miles of Strasbourg and the surrounding area. No centralized method existed for monitoring and collecting data on assets, HVAC, electricity and other facility processes that would allow staff to review trends and identify better practices for saving time, money and energy.

 

 

"Wonderware System Platform enables the University’s Energy Department to successfully manage operations at our 140 buildings by accurately processing technical data in real-time for assessment. We can now more effectively manage University assets and operations ensuring the comfort of our students, educators, staff and visitors each day."
– Damien Bertrand, Energy Department Manager, University of Strasbourg

 

The search for an open, scalable supervisory control and monitoring system led them to Wonderware® System Platform which provided extensive capabilities and met the University’s need for a solution that collects and manages data from all building systems and assets, and that easily integrated with the University’s existing asset data management program. System Platform efficiently centralizes data gathering and enables extensive data analysis to improve overall asset and energy efficiencies at the University’s distributed campus buildings – everything is built and managed within the same software infrastructure.

Wonderware System Platform also features one of the industry’s most powerful data historian applications, Wonderware Historian, which provides Energy Department staff actionable information with rich data analysis and reporting capabilities. And there is Wonderware InTouch®, an open, extensible supervisory human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) solution that provides user-friendly views of the University’s building control systems to staff and management from any location in real-time.

For more information, read the success story or visit our Smart Cities Industry page on software.invensys.com.

Wonderware Software Helps AENA Manage Operations at Barcelona El Prat Airport

The gateway to the beautiful city of Barcelona is the El Prat Airport. In a typical year, over 35 million passengers and 96 thousand tons of cargo pass through the airport. AENA is responsible for the operations of the Barcelona El Prat Airport. AENA is one of the world's top airport operators, in terms of the number of passengers handled. More than 200 million travelers pass through AENA's 46 domestic and 15 international airports.

"Our systems allow us to be aware of what is going on in the airport infrastructures, and we manage the airport as an intelligent environment. The 'smart city' concept is very much in vogue nowadays. We can say without any doubt that the Barcelona airport is a smart airport - intelligent, able to manage its infrastructures and always self-aware."

– José Luis González, Director de Informática  

 

  

 

AENA's smart airport solution boasts a dynamic, intelligent infrastructure. The control environment for the airport management system handles over 1,000,000 signals. It includes the control of all escalators, elevators and passenger moving walkways; power management; air conditioning; and fire safety systems. It also involves monitoring support for the automated luggage transport system. This fully integrated, multi-hardware solution was made possible with the help of Wonderware.

Wonderware System Platform lets AENA manage a large number of processes in an integrated and simultaneous manner under a single platform. It provides an easy-to-use, flexible and scalable solution that allows AENA to create control templates that can easily be deployed by any of its multiple system integrator contractors.

Today, Wonderware is being used in all 46 airports that AENA manages all over Spain.

For more information, watch the new video, read the success story, or visit our Smart Cities Industry page on software.invensys.com.

Invensys and Smart Cities: An Industrial-Strength Enabling Platform

Today, the Smart Cities Council posted an interview with Rob McGreevy, VP Platform and Applications, Software Solutions at Invensys (now part of Schneider Electric). Invensys is an Associate Partner of the Smart Cities Council. Read the full interview on the Council's website and learn more about what Invensys is doing in the Smart Cities area as Rob addresses these questions:

• Has the smart cities market hit the tipping point?
• Do we have the technology we need, or is there more to invent?
• Which technologies are core to a smart city?
• Are there ways to overcome the financing obstacle?
• What areas of the world are leading the way?
• How important is the smart cities market to Invensys?
• What is Invensys' role in the smart cities ecosystem?
• What does Invensys do better than any other company?
• Are there any misconceptions about Invensys and its smart city capabilities?
• What's next for Invensys?
• What is the single most important thing a city leader should do today to position his city for success?
• What's the right way for a city to get started?

You can also visit our new Invensys Software website for additional information about our Smart Cities software solutions.

Smart Cities Readiness Guide Advances Smart City Development with First-of-its-Kind Tool for City Leaders Around the World

Readiness Guide is the first vendor-neutral comprehensive roadmap for smart city development

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (November 18, 2013) The Smart Cities Council today released version 1.0 of the Smart Cities Council Readiness Guide, the first comprehensive, vendor-neutral smart city handbook for city leaders and planners. Designed with input from leading smart city and urban planning experts as well as top global technology companies, the Guide enables city leaders to assess their current state of technology and its readiness to become a smart city. It is available for free download at www.smartcitiescouncil.com/readinessguide.

The Guide was unveiled in Barcelona, Spain, the day before the Smart City Expo World Congress begins there, at a smart cities workshop and press announcement with the renowned ESADE Business School’s Institute of Public Governance and Management.

The Guide is a collection of guidelines, best practices and case studies. It helps a city create its own customized "wish list" with the confidence that it has not left out anything essential and that all the pieces will work together even if they are built in stages. The Guide outlines proven principles to follow in order to be successful and avoid pitfalls.

The Guide includes vendor-neutral technology recommendations on all eight of a city’s most important responsibilities: the built environment, energy, telecommunications, transportation, water and waste water, health and human services, public safety, and payments.

About the Smart Cities Council - The Smart Cities Council is comprised of the foremost companies in the smart technologies sector. Its goal is to accelerate the growth of smart cities worldwide by providing city leaders and urban planners with tools and resources, such as a Readiness Guide, financial guides, policy frameworks, and "mentoring" sessions. For more information, visit www.smartcitiescouncil.com.

Today's full Smart Cities Council press release is available here.

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Invensys is an Associate Partner in the Smart Cities Council. Invensys is participating again this year at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress in Barcelona, November 19-21, and is present in the Wonderware Spain stand (D421), our Wonderware software distributor, and also in the Microsoft stand (D415) as a Partner supporting their CityNext initiative. For more information about Invensys' Wonderware software solutions for smart cities, visit www.smartcitiessoftware.com.

Smart and Sustainable Spanish Ecocity Valdespartera Relies on Software Solution from Invensys Wonderware Spain

Ecocity Valdespartera is the first urban development project in Spain to be governed entirely by bioclimatic criteria in line with the objectives of environmental sustainability contained in the Kyoto Protocol. Creating a city where bioclimatic management was built into the project’s development meant that integrating and running all of the city’s facilities with a centralized IT system had to be considered. The system had to efficiently manage everything from the drinking water supply network, sewage and rainwater treatment network, watering systems and electricity and gas supplies, to street lighting, pneumatic waste collection and the housing and environmental control network. Wonderware® real-time operations management software from Invensys, in conjunction with Microsoft® Windows® and SQL Server®, was selected as the best solution for overall management and analysis of this unique urban environment.

“One of the key innovations of Valdespartera from a technology perspective is the comprehensiveness of the integrated management system. Many cities have experimented with ‘smart’ components, but here we have a highly advanced model. Valdespartera is a unique example of how the cities of the future can be designed using data to make intelligent decisions on a wide range of public services.” – Jordi Rey, managing director of Invensys Wonderware Spain

Learn more in this Microsoft Touch cover story or visit our Software Solutions for Smart Cities area on wonderware.com.

Invensys Participates in CityNext

Company engages with government, businesses and citizens to shape next-gen cities

AUGUST 15, 2013 / HOUSTON, TEXAS – Invensys, a focused supplier of state-of-the-art industrial software, systems and control equipment to the world’s major industries, is working with Microsoft on CityNext, an initiative designed to help governments, businesses and citizens reimagine what is next for their cities.

According to the United Nations, for the first time in history, more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas and nearly 70 percent of people will live in cities by 2050. This ongoing migration creates unprecedented opportunities, but also intensifies problems such as aging infrastructure, hazards to public health and safety, pollution, crime and traffic. Through the CityNext initiative, Microsoft and Invensys will help leaders do “new with less.” By combining the power of technology with innovative ideas, CityNext will connect governments, businesses and citizens with city services that increase efficiencies, reduce costs, foster a more sustainable environment and cultivate communities where people thrive. 

Invensys, through its Wonderware^® software product line and partner solutions, provides unique, modern industrial software solutions, systems and control equipment that help improve critical infrastructure operations, including for cities of all sizes. These solutions help cities provide essential, life-sustaining services like clean drinking water, sanitary wastewater treatment, reliable electricity, safe transportation and other services. Wonderware software solutions help clients utilize critical data to make better, faster decisions and improve efficiency. Operational information of practically any kind can be securely viewed in real time from anywhere at any time, from a single, integrated and open Wonderware software platform. 

“Our participation in Microsoft CityNext demonstrates our commitment to helping cities be smarter, more sustainable and more innovative now and to modernize for the future,” said Rob McGreevy, vice president of platforms and applications for Invensys. “Microsoft’s latest technologies will provide us with greater opportunities to help our municipal customers transform and modernize their city operations using familiar, secure Wonderware technology and devices. Through this program, cities will be able to engage their citizens and businesses using mobile applications and big data analytics, helping to accelerate innovation and opportunities through community development and workforce enablement programs.”  

"We’re thrilled to partner with Invensys on CityNext. Microsoft prioritizes putting people and partners first in our initiatives and CityNext is no different,” said Laura Ipsen, corporate vice president Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector. “Even though cities are feeling the strain from economic challenges, we believe a new era of innovation will create opportunities for people to utilize technology to accomplish what they never thought possible. We’re inspired by our diverse partner ecosystem and know that working together we can help cities realize their full potential.”

Related Links:

  Invensys News Release
  Microsoft CityNext News Release

  CityNext Website

  CityNext Video

Invensys Joins New Smart Cities Council as Associate Partner

Helps accelerate global shift to smart, sustainable cities

JUNE 06, 2013 / HOUSTON, TEXAS – Invensys, a focused supplier of state-of-the-art industrial software, systems and control equipment to the world’s major industries, has joined the new Smart Cities Council as an Associate Partner. The Council is comprised of leading global technology companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, IBM and others working in partnership with advising experts from the world of research, academia and advocacy.
 

Urbanization is a global trend. More than 50 percent of people today live in cities, and according to the United Nations, the number is increasing. Urbanization poses significant short-term and long-term challenges to governments and municipalities, including retrofitting aging infrastructure, relieving traffic congestion, meeting energy demand, rising energy costs and more...

 

“Invensys is proud to be a part of the growing global smart cities movement through the new Smart Cities Council,” says Steve Garbrecht, vice president of software marketing for Invensys. “Our Wonderware® software, including the world’s leading human machine interface software, InTouch®, is ideally suited for cities. It allows secure management of virtually any infrastructure system, like power, water, wastewater, transportation and other networks, from a single, integrated real-time platform. Our software lets cities use valuable information to make better, faster decisions and improve efficiency of small or city-wide applications.”...

 

For more information, see the complete Invensys news release. Recent news about the launch of the Smart Cities Council can also be found on the Council's website here.

Timelapse Video of a Smart City at Night

The city of Barcelona, Spain, has been mentioned a few times on this blog. In fact, we kicked off the blog last December with a post about Invensys' participation at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress held there. That major international event will be held in Barcelona again this coming November, and Invensys will be there.

Midnight Barcelona is a stunning timelapse video by Pau García Laita that offers a fast, modern look at the city at night. According to the description on YouTube, more than 20,000 pictures were taken and five months of work required for the project. It is an impressive reminder of city dynamics, and in this case those of a city widely recognized as a leading smart city.

Worldwide Smart City 2013 Top 10 Predictions by IDC Government Insights

The Smart City movement is increasingly a force of innovation and investment at all levels of government. To help government organizations, IDC Government Insights has identified the key trends and business drivers in IT and related technologies that will influence Smart City development for the next 12–18 months.

Smart City Progress Report: North America

According to Eric Woods of Navigant Research:

"The smart city label may be less common in North America than in Europe and Asia, but North American cities are looking to technology to improve the quality of public services and boost local economies. U.S. and Canadian cities are also matching their counterparts around the world in setting ambitious sustainability targets."

Read Eric's complete point-of-view piece on the Smart Cities Council website - it identifies several areas where North American cities are driving technology innovation: Smart City Progress: North America

Invensys is an Associate Partner of the Smart Cities Council.

Invensys featured as smart city provider in Spain

Barcelona wants to become a people-oriented city, where technology contributes to achieving a greater welfare, quality of life and boosting economic progress.

Located on a former military barracks site south of the city of Zaragoza in Aragón, Spain, Ecocity Valdespartera is a revolutionary social housing project that is putting the environment and the well being of its citizens first.

Please read the story here.

Invensys Joins Smart Cities Council

Invensys recently joined the Smart Cities Council as part of an effort to work with other similar minded technology vendors who are passionate about making the cities we live in, more sustainable. Wonderware Smart Cities Solutions help clients utilize critical data to make better, faster decisions and improve efficiency – and these are precisely the kinds of benefits smart cities are looking for.

The Smart Cities Council shares our vision.

We envision a world where digital technology and intelligent design have been harnessed to create smart, sustainable cities with high-quality living and high-quality jobs. We promote cities that embody our three core values:

• Livability: Cities that provide clean, healthy living conditions without pollution and congestion. With a digital infrastructure that makes city services instantly and conveniently available anytime, anywhere.
• Workability: Cities that provide the enabling infrastructure -- energy, connectivity, computing, essential services -- to compete globally for high-quality jobs.
• Sustainability: Cities that provide services without stealing from future generations.

Carson City, Nevada, is a “Smart City” with the Help of Invensys

Carson City Public Works is responsible for taking care of the city’s water, wastewater, transportation, landfill, fleet, environmental, and renewable power systems. To achieve its goals, Carson City Public Works created an infrastructure that revolves around the capabilities of its people and the best available smart city technology from Invensys. The result is improved operator and managerial efficiency, increased situational awareness, and a high level of operational readiness. This short video shows how the city’s various systems are integrated together to create a smart city at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Watch video

 

Some figures on IT in smart cities market size: $20Billion USD in 2020 from 6 today

I was recently alerted to this posting from our team in Europe, who continue to find new opportunities in Smart Cities. So just how large is this market?

Is The UK Ready For A Smart City?

Well, it is not just the UK, but here is a good article from one of our partners in this part of the world, Solutions PT that talks about the level of technology that administrators and managers of these cities are accustomed with, and suggests they explore more advanced techniques and technologies.