Creating Cities of the Future with Digital Twin Technology
uncertainty. These fluctuations stress the
local grid infrastructure and overpower the
system. To overcome the negative impact of
the intermittency of renewable power and
to enable more accurate load forecasting,
material scientists are urgently and actively
exploring methods to cost effectively bank
power from renewable energy resources. 8
M AKING THE S WITCH TO R ENEWABLE
E NERGY
When communities generate and use
renewable energy, the demand for fossil fuel
energy drops. This means that less fossil fuel
gets burned and fewer pollutants are
emitted into the atmosphere. Reducing the
burning of fossil fuels reduces nitrogen
oxides which contribute to air pollution
through the formation of smog and acid rain.
Transforming the energy system of an entire
region can be intimidating. Exactly how
should a mayor or city planner close the gap
between ambitious goal setting and the
actual work of transforming the energy
system? While the desired metrics are clear
and infrastructure solutions exist, the path
to successful implementation could be
straightforward if made from scratch, but it
isn’t as obvious when we need to transform
an existing infrastructure. Adding renewable
energy to existing grid infrastructure poses a
unique set of challenges. In addition to the
significant load balancing and power
forecasting
considerations,
expanding
renewables requires planning, permitting
and program and policy design—particularly
given a key goal for C40 mayors is providing
renewable energy resources equitably
across all income households, but especially
focusing on underserved groups. Inadequate
or ineffective network planning could derail
a city’s renewable electricity future.
All involved in the effort to decarbonize the
grid agree that time is limited for designing a
practical and reliable solution to mitigate the
environmental impact
of pollution.
Progressive government leaders including
the C40 mayors, a coalition of mayors from
cities around the world, are setting policies
and sending market signals to technologists
and private entities. Scientists are urgently
focused on material science research toward
developing a cost-effective solution for
storing and dispatching several days’ worth
of renewable energy, and public and private
partnerships are being established to
promote adoption of clean energy across all
socioeconomic groups.
A component still missing from all these
efforts is an adaptable and user-friendly
open planning tool that enables the
leadership in a given community to
incrementally add renewable resources to
the energy system in a technically,
operationally and socially feasible manner.
Though the task seems daunting, industry
innovators recognize a number of
advancements in technology that may be
8
NPR. July 22 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/744206049/a-new-battery-could-be-key-to-cutting-carbon-emissions-
slowing-climate-change
IIC Journal of Innovation
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