**The Dream of a Green and Low-Carbon Smart City**
Cities as People
People spend most of their time nestled within buildings made of steel and concrete in cities. Both the quality of life and work efficiency of individuals are influenced by buildings and their surrounding environments. New generations of scientific technologies, such as IoT, cloud computing, big data, mobile internet, and AI, can be applied to urban power systems, water systems, transportation systems, buildings, offices, and homes. If used appropriately and cost-effectively, these technologies can substantially improve people's quality of life and work efficiency.
Former Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, described smart cities while developing an intelligent warning system to address public safety and traffic conditions during the 2016 Olympics: "A smart city is one that effectively manages its resources, with intelligent operations in transportation, public services, and disaster response to reduce costs, enhance performance, and lower carbon emissions."
Green and low-carbon goals are core elements in the smart city planning objectives of various countries and regions. Living and working in a green, low-carbon environment is a dream for urban residents.
At the beginning of this year, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) announced the "Top 7 Intelligent Communities of 2017," including Melbourne and Ipswich in Australia, Edmonton and Grey County in Canada, Moscow in Russia, and Taoyuan and Chiayi in Taiwan. The evaluation criteria included broadband, knowledge workforce, digital equality, innovation, sustainability, and marketing advocacy—six key indicators of smart cities.
In Taoyuan, Taiwan, the deployment of thousands of WiFi and low-power IoT technology LoRa hotspots was a significant factor in its award. This IoT wireless sensor network covers the entire island, supporting applications such as child location tracking, elderly wandering prevention, pet tracking, parking space display, soil and water quality monitoring, vehicle theft prevention, smart water meters, and smart electricity meters. Technology is gradually realizing these previously unattainable sustainable development smart services.
The concept of green and low-carbon broadens the imagination space for smart city planning and implementation. In Japan, the "Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City" project is a grand smart city initiative. Kashiwa is a satellite city about 30 kilometers from Tokyo. The smart city project is a collaboration between government agencies, universities and research institutions, private real estate developers, and technology companies—"government, private, and academia." The goal is to create a safe, secure, and sustainable smart city, focusing on "environmentally symbiotic cities," "health and longevity cities," and "new industry creation cities," making it a gateway to the "future concept image of the world."
To achieve these goals, the Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City project simultaneously focuses on hardware and software infrastructure. It effectively utilizes the area's diverse natural environment resources and promotes new-generation transportation systems and green projects to ensure the city's disaster response capabilities. The project aims to create a future-oriented environmentally symbiotic city where people and the environment coexist. For example, the Area Energy Management System (AEMS) creates an autonomous smart grid that combines solar power, battery power, and other distributed power sources with power from utility companies. This system allows electricity redistribution among neighborhoods, storing power during surplus periods and supplying it to offices on weekdays, commercial facilities on weekends, and prioritizing residential areas during disasters. This mode can achieve approximately 26% peak power reduction across the region while meeting energy-saving and CO2 reduction goals.
Additionally, the project uses the Home Energy Management System (HEMS) to visualize energy usage, enhancing residents' participation and promoting more environmentally friendly lifestyles. For example, through dedicated tablets, computers, and smartphones, residents can receive notifications about their CO2 emissions. Using AI, the system provides suggestions based on each household's energy usage and publishes energy-saving achievement rankings. It also features an "energy-saving request function" for emergencies, allowing residents to control lighting and air conditioning remotely when they are away from home.
Currently, the Hong Kong government is intensively planning smart city development. The experiences of Taoyuan and Kashiwa-no-ha provide valuable lessons. Pursuing grand and comprehensive plans often overlooks human care, environmental protection, and energy conservation and reuse. Smart cities should be people-centric, and green and low-carbon living is everyone's dream.
Dr. Angus Cheong Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Internet Research Alliance and Chief Data Consultant at uMax Data Technology Ltd.
(Originally published in Hong Kong Economic Journal)