Smart City Expo World Congress 2023: smart cities are sustainable cities – what does that look like in practice?
Published: 26. Oct 2023
The energy and mobility transition, climate neutrality and energy conservation require all areas of life in cities and municipalities to be digitalised. ZENNER will present the technology and tools required for this at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. With more than 350 successful IoT (Internet of Things) projects, ZENNER has a wealth of experience in the field of smart cities.
Saarbrücken, 26 October 2023. Europe wants to become climate neutral by 2050. The German Environment Agency has reported a total of around 756 million tonnes of CO2 emissions within Germany for 2022. The building sector – one of the largest emitters of CO2 in Germany – is to become climate-neutral by 2045.
This sets a clear task for municipal utilities and municipalities, that they can only tackle together and by using digital solutions. ZENNER is supporting its customers by giving them the appropriate tools. And with success: in September 2023, ZENNER was given the Platinum Award in the Smart Country/Smart Cities category of the eGovernment Readers’ Choice Awards.
LoRaWAN®: the engine for digitalisation
LoRaWAN® is a communication protocol that is already being widely used today and was developed specifically for IoT applications. The radio technology enables data transmission over long distances and consumes very little energy.
“In the smart cities of today, it is no longer a question of whether LoRaWAN® should be used, but which LoRaWAN® solutions should be implemented,” explains René Claussen, Head of the IoT and Digital Solutions Business Unit at ZENNER International GmbH & Co. KG.
From smart metering to smart city applications, ZENNER offers municipal utilities and municipalities sustainable IoT solutions for use in practice and these can be implemented with little effort. In an already existing LoRaWAN® network with the corresponding gateways, existing solutions, such as submetering, can be scaled quickly and economically, or new IoT solutions can be added fuss-free.
Smart metering: a focus on consumption transparency
The topics of climate neutrality, energy conservation and the EU taxonomy are fuelling a growing need for innovative solutions that can be swiftly implemented to create consumption transparency in the building sector. Transparent recording and making it mandatory to provide consumption data to the occupant on a monthly basis will result in a more conscious use of energy and heating, and thus also reduce CO2 emissions. In this way, residents can actively contribute to protecting the climate.
Smart submetering with LoRaWAN®, in particular, is an optimal entry into digital, sustainable building management for many municipal utilities and energy providers.
Smart Building: save up to 31.5% energy with LoRaWAN® radiator thermostats.
It is important for landlords, building occupants and other building users to use energy as efficiently as possible, and not only in connection with increased energy costs. Conventional radiator thermostats are still used in many properties in Germany. If the heating is left on unnoticed for a long period of time or is not switched off when airing out a room, this results in energy losses and costs which could have been avoided
With the IoT solution BuildingLink from ZENNER, consuming energy inefficiently when heating is avoided. Thanks to the web application, which can be operated via any standard browser, room temperature and humidity can be controlled and monitored easily and conveniently from anywhere. With this smart building solution, facility managers and building administrators can target specific areas of the building and adjust the temperatures according to actual use. BuildingLink helps to save CO2 emissions and ensures full transparency and control over heating performance.
Smart Grid: transparency in low-voltage networks
LoRaWAN® infrastructures already exist or are under construction in many cities. Real-time data from low-voltage networks can also be transmitted via these radio networks without any additional costs. Via a LoRaWAN® radio network and with the corresponding sensors, this real-time data can be transmitted and forwarded to the Element IoT platform by ZENNER for monitoring, which records measured values and processes, and pre-processes them according to the specific application.
With the ZENNER GridLink application, the raw data collected can be finally visualised for evaluation. Through monitoring, unusual operational statuses are detected at an early stage and operators can react proactively. This makes the entire low-voltage network in the city transparent.
Smart City: climate-neutral and digital
Smart city solutions can be used in almost all areas of cities and regions, including smart parking or traffic flow measurement, fill level monitoring in waste containers to optimise waste routes (smart waste) or environmental monitoring. The focus is on improving citizens’ quality of life through better air, less traffic and an intact environment.
A smart city is a complex system that goes far beyond the commonly known applications like smart parking or smart lighting. Rather, it is an intelligent network of an array of digital solutions from different areas, such as the building sector, electromobility or the field of smart grids. Keeping these areas connected ensures that city and municipal resources are used optimally and sustainably.
The all-in-one IoT solution Element Suite is the cornerstone of digitalisation
“With Element Suite, we are providing the market with a new, more advanced all-in-one IoT solution that makes the IoT scalable and economical,” says René Claussen. Element Suite is the tool for digitalisation in the energy industry and in smart cities, and is more than just an IoT platform. With the three modules Element Go (field service management), Element IoT (IoT platform) and Element Apps (application kit), ZENNER guarantees its customers a completely digital end-to-end data flow, from device assembly and commissioning to the final application – without any media discontinuity.
Discover the vast variety of ways ZENNER’s digital technology can be used at the Smart City Expo World Congress 2023. You can find ZENNER at at the joint LoRa Alliance® booth in Hall2 Level 0 Aisle F Booth 9.