The Transition from Smart Buildings to Smart Cities

Author: Atin Chhabra Schneider Electric Blog

There was a time when humans were not as evolved as they are today, humans had become smart but lacked the capability of creating something smarter than them. By the end of the 20th-century humans have started progressing and became smarter and smarter, and now we all can witness how far we have come as a race. We have accomplished the goal of creating smart devices and have also created an ecosystem for most of them, but the question is, are we able to help our planet through these smart devices? As we know 70 per cent of our resources are being utilised by cities and it is estimated that 66 % of the world population will be living in cities by 2050, so looking at this number the consumption of resources will increase drastically.

To tackle this problem the Indian Government recently announced smart city mission through which it will build 100 such cities in the country, these cities are aimed at being citizen friendly and sustainable. The government has started doing its bit seeing the nearing future, but private organisations still lack the interest of investing into such projects due to the smart city challenges which are unreasonably high cost and high energy consumption. The cost of building is quite high in the current era as to build building management systems highly skilled workers are required and a lot of electricity too.

Another thing to keep in mind is cybersecurity that how well the servers of the smart cities are protected, and can they accomplish the goal of not compromising the safety of the inhabitants of these cities. To accommodate such needs of a smart city a lot of investment and effort is required which scares off most of the private organisations. But some companies are still opting to help in the development of these cities like Schneider Electric which has a project called Eco Struxure which has all the ingredients in the right proportion and is aiming to turn the buildings into smart buildings.

Smart buildings are a big leap forward in the advancement of building management and will help the city in using resources in a limited manner. Most of these building management systems come equipped with smart panels which are 24/7 connected to the ethernet. It will tell you about any overload in the building and any other inefficiencies. Moreover, it helps in equal power distribution to all the parts of the building. It will even level out operational efficiency and assist in saving electricity. Most of the buildings in these smart cities will come equipped with solar panels which will help them in producing the required electricity for its operations and simultaneously will also help them in decreasing their carbon footprint.

We are laying a strong foundation for smart cities and smart building but what about the existing cities? To make the existing cities more productive and sustainable, home automation is the answer. As these systems help in a major way, they monitor the electricity usage, the water usage and helps in minimising their usage when not needed. It keeps track on all utilities of the house and helps in minimising their usage. KNX home automation, a brand owned by Schneider Electric is helping this coming into a reality by providing efficient and advanced home automation systems. All these small efforts by organisations make way for a greener future, Smart Cities will be a big part of our urban environment in the future and will help maintain sustainable growth. These efforts of humans show their smartness and with the smartness their want of helping our planet. If organisations like Schneider Electric keep coming up with new and innovative ideas of how they can make our growth sustainable, then we might end making our