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.
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.
