Smart City/Smart Utility

Smart City/Smart Utility content features highlights from Black & Veatch's 2016 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility report including subject matter expert insights, survey response trends and in-depth commentary on current industry issues.

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Energy & Infrastructure
Long-Term Planning Critical to Harnessing Distributed Energy Resources
As more and more customers begin exercising more control over how and where their energy is produced, utilities have a responsibility to make the appropriate infrastructure investments that will optimize smart grid benefits for all stakeholders.
Energy & Infrastructure
Epic Investment Trends in Smart Distribution Systems
Historically, most utility capital investments focused on regulated generation and transmission assets that provided the basis for customer rates structures and returns. But the growing interconnectivity within utility assets and electric distribution networks now requires a more holistic approach to planning, and many regulators are requiring utilities to invest in distribution under similar reliability mandates to those governing generation and transmission markets.
Energy & Infrastructure
Shifting to a Digital Grid Forces System-Wide Grid Modernization
We are at the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, defined by its velocity and volume, scope and scale, and systems impact. The foundation of this new era is squarely built upon the success of the "digital grid." The first three revolutions—defined by the introduction of steam and mechanization, electricity and computing, respectively—all had profound societal impacts, but they lacked the exponential rate of technological breakthroughs and complexity that define the fourth.
Energy & Infrastructure
Smart Grid and Microgrids—the Hard Solution for Asia’s At-Risk Megacities
Disaster recovery remains a driving force for Asia, which experiences more natural disasters than any other region in the world. Floods, earthquakes and cyclones continue to wreak havoc—killing people, wiping out homes and livelihoods, and leaving economies in distress. However, there may be a solution that will help mitigate loss going forward—making small investments in the power grid today by embracing emerging smart grid and microgrid solutions will save these ever-expanding cities’ resources while critically improving disaster resilience and recovery of life in times of human tragedy.
Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment
The Value of Smart City Initiatives Offer New Twist on Old Question of Affordability
Black & Veatch’s 2017 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility Report reinforces lessons learned in the past year—although governments and municipalities believe strongly in the smart city model, they continue to struggle to fund these efforts. According to survey data, only 16 percent of municipalities can self-fund a smart city initiative, a little over a third cannot.
Energy & Infrastructure
Communications Network is the Foundation of Smarter Cities and Smarter Grids
By building communications networks that can more tightly integrate business drivers and goals with the day-to-day load demand for their customers, utilities are taking the initial steps toward integrating the smart grid with smart cities. The foundation for both utility systems integration and smart grid/smart city integration is the communications network.
AI & Technology
Smarter Public Safety Communication Systems Are Critical to the Evolution of Cities
As the communication technologies leveraged by the public safety sector advance, the intersection with smart city initiatives becomes all the more inevitable. Technological advances afforded by broadband long-term evolution (LTE) networks have changed how first responders, city and county officials, public agencies and transportation fleets communicate and gather data to better serve their communities.
Environment
In Africa, Natural Events and Surging Demand Place New Spotlight on Microgrids
The impact of natural disasters on power grid resilience is increasingly gaining attention worldwide. Adapting lessons learned from high-profile incidents that have occurred elsewhere for the African continent, where energy supply is already intermittent, may provide opportunities to enhance the region’s energy system reliability through smart grid infrastructure solutions.
Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment
For Smart Cities, What Comes First? The Budget or the Plan?
Strained budgets may be holding back many municipalities whose leaders understand the benefits of smart city systems but lack the money to support them. Yet, a question is emerging that potentially turns that notion on its head: How can a city know what it can’t afford until it identifies what it needs?
AI & Technology
Grid Modernization: Utility 2.0 has arrived, but it brings opportunity and caution
For years, utilities have struggled to define the more responsive operational systems and customer-centric performance models that would trumpet the arrival of Utility 2.0. Lacking a singular event marking the shift, it seems more likely a steady, incremental advance through technology deployments, analytics and a focus on customer engagement represents the path towards a continually evolving future state.

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