By Mark Stratton, Hitachi Consulting Corporation
Modern IoT smart energy platforms have the potential both to power smart city intelligence via sensors, analytics and services, and to drive cities to become smarter. Platform providers and ultimately cable operators themselves can do this by leveraging their knowledge and experience in traditional large-scale smart building practices that have been undertaken in recent years in both telecom and non-telecom infrastructure. They can also leverage their experience in selecting the right energy efficiency improvements for small- and medium-sized cable edge facilities that can be applied to small and medium businesses with similar size and payback constraints. The platforms and tools already used for large scale analysis of cable facility portfolios can now be applied to any building type at the portfolio, campus, city and national scales. Recent use of these tools has resulted in business cases being made for early retirement of aging HVAC equipment, deployment of cost-effective energy conservation measures that payback on the order of 3 years (even for edge facilities in states with low utility rates), and analysis and prioritization of LED lighting improvements. And these are just some of the potential energy conservation measures that can be analyzed, prioritized, and planned with a comprehensive platform for helping buildings, portfolios and cities get smart about energy use. In this paper, the experience and lessons learned in cost-effectively selecting and deploying energy conservation measures in cable infrastructure and facilities will be shown to be directly applicable to new services and revenue streams that platform providers and cable operators can develop or partner on for smart city initiatives using IoT technologies and smart energy tools. Coupling these tools with diverse funding models will further enable companies and entire cities to deploy smart energy management and energy conservation measures cost-effectively and even as a service.