Energy Efficiency

NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE:NRG) and its subsidiary Reliant, the premier retail electricity provider in Texas, have teamed up with the NFLto provide 100% Green-e certified renewable energy to NRG Stadium, site of Super Bowl LI, and the George R. Brown Convention Center, location of the NFL Experience and other NFL celebrations in Houston.

As governments consider where to spend their smart city funding, they may initially center on the critical building blocks of a smart city but often become subject to short-term budget priorities. To this point, responses to the 2017 Strategic Directions: Smart City/ Smart Utility Report survey suggest a vexing conundrum: What comes first, the budget or the plan?

Winter brings long nights, cold temperatures—and high energy bills. All of that artificial heat and light uses up energy resources and costs a lot. While we’re often focused on not running up our heating bills at home, it’s just as important to be aware of skyrocketing costs at the office. Here are a few areas to focus on when cutting costs.

One of the challenges in smart city transportation is to be able to go from point A to point B, while reducing the number of cars on the market, and also being able to use existing public transportation.

Maryline Daviaud Lewett, Business Development Manager, Black & Veatch, discusses how cities are partnering with the private sector to optimize these services.

Companies have long facilitated public-private partnerships to create innovative solutions to the critical issues facing the world today. From Cisco's Smart + Connected Communities effort to Coca-Cola's Project Last Mile delivering medical supplies to remote areas, companies understand the benefits of improving the communities they operate in. Now, one automotive company is taking its work to the streets of London to reduce air pollution as part of a multimillion-pound project.

The Black & Veatch 2017 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility Report investigates the progress made by communities and utilities as they continue their evolution toward smarter infrastructure. Around the globe, cities and utilities are beginning to see tangible results from preliminary efforts and are gaining confidence in what a smart city can be.

Republic Services recently accepted the Pioneer Award for the Southern Nevada Recycling Center at BOMA’s TOBY (The Outstanding Building of the Year) Awards. The Pioneer Award is given to the building that demonstrates a significant contribution to the improvement and enhancement of a community.

Cities and utilities are increasingly relying on data analytics tools to advance their smart systems, even as municipal leaders grapple with how to pay for these upgrades. Fulfilling the smart city promise will require integrating communication technology and increasing stakeholder engagement. This combination will help transform cities and infrastructure, according to Black & Veatch’s just-released 2017 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility Report.

Black & Veatch announced today a new tool aimed at helping utilities deploy large-scale grid modernization projects. The company’s cloud-based Spatial Engineering Knowledge Optimization Immersive Analysis system – SEKOIA – is a central hub for all project management and design-build applications.