First DATA, than SMART

Last week I bought a new washing machine. Key to my decision for the AEG lavamat machine, was the information given on the internet and the ability to compare with other brands. The availability of abundant information made it possible for me to make a swift and smart decision. Due to the availability of data I am convinced I made a good choice.
Our cities’ TRANSFORM project is based on conviction that sustainable decisions can only be made if reliable information is available. And that is logic. If there is no proper or reliable information at hand, politicians, investors and firms will never be able to make reliable decisions, make convincing plans, calculate risks involved, or negotiate with partners when e.g. designing new infrastructure.
The energy system of a city is incredibly complex, and even more in the future. The system is about energy production, distribution and consumption. But it is also about summer and winter, about peak consumption when you and your fellow citizens rise in the morning and take a shower.
It is, if it comes to sustainable solutions, about isolating buildings and the needed investments, about solar panels on roofs and the gains, it is about smart meters and making decisions on the data given, it is about infrastructure for electric vehicles and it’s investments, it is about big users and the recovery of waste heat, it is about big investments in distribution systems, it is about smart grids and the development of new techniques and decisions to invest. If you like, I can go on?…
Above this, all these different energy components are related. One will influence the other and vice versa. In the end, a cities’ energy system consists of hundreds of components and they are all, one way or the other, connected.
All our cities have problems mining relevant data.
We think we are already smart cities because we are ranked so.
Vienna on first place and Amsterdam according to
But we’re not!
We lack the abundant DATA to be smart.
What do we need, now we change to renewable energy and sustainable solutions?
How can we truly become SMART energy cities in the future?
Smart cities can only develop when there is reliable, abundant and proper data available.
And after that, we can only be smart if we can make decisions based on it.
TRANSFORM is collecting all needed data.
TRANSFORM is turning all this data into maps so we are able to understand.
TRANSFORM is building tools to make quantitative decisions.
TRANSFORM is building tools to make qualitative decisions.
TRANSFORM is helping to make cities SMART.
First of all we need data. After that we can become smart!
Copenhagen SMART CITY
Amsterdam SMART CITY
The Guardian