Urbanization is rapidly intensifying. Because growing cities require more infrastructure, consume more energy and produce more waste, they face the challenge of scaling while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today cities consume 78% of the world’s energy and produce more than 60% of greenhouse gas. To increase infrastructure and capacity while decreasing carbon emissions in cities, a paradigm shift is required – cities must use digitization and wireless technology to operate smarter, producing and distributing energy more efficiently and prioritizing renewable energy. By leveraging IoT, municipal assets can be monitored in real-time and controlled remotely, residents can actively track their energy consumption and cities can control when and where power is needed.
Growth in Smart Cities
Smart Metering
The global smart meter market (electricity, gas, water) is projected to reach USD $39 billion by 2027.
Smart Streetlights
The smart lighting market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 18% USD $31 billion by 2025.
EV Charging
The electric vehicle (EV) charging market size is expected to reach USD $70 billion globally by 2026.
Solar Systems
The solar photovoltaic (PV) market is estimated to grow on average 5% annually, reaching USD $185 billion by 2027.
What Cities Need from IoT
Scalability
Cities are growing constantly, expanding their land surface area, infrastructure and service capacity. With the influx of people, they need to scale quickly and add more devices that can grow with the city, from smart meters to smart street lights to EV chargers.
Security & Trust
Smart city devices are typically connected to the heart of a city’s central operating system, power grid and utilities. A single security breach is enough to halt operations. Each device, especially those in control of critical resources and data, must be robustly secured throughout their entire lifecycle.
Maximum Return on Investment (ROI)
Deploying an IoT network within the city can be a heavy lift. Cities must be able to share a network across many smart city applications to maximize their ROI. With IoT, smart streetlights can be used beyond just street lighting to connect traffic lights, trash bins, parking meters and more.
Minimized Lifecycle Costs
Smart city applications, including gas meters, streetlights and EV chargers, are typically battery powered and spread across large areas. Maintaining the installed base requires low maintenance IoT devices with a long battery-life, reliable wireless connectivity and over-the-air updates.
Reliability
To protect revenue streams, minimize maintenance costs and ensure positive customer experiences, smart city nodes need to remain connected, despite long distances, randomized presence of obstacles, foliage and other sources of urban interference. Reliable wireless connectivity is critical for cities and several aspects are considered: the connectivity standard, frequency band, network topology and devices’ radio frequency (RF) performance.
How to Meet IoT Product Lifecycle Challenges
To succeed in the intensely competitive smart home market, it is not enough to just develop and launch products to the market. With the continuously evolving software, security and wireless ecosystems, you must consider how to manage the entire IoT product lifecycle, from design to decommissioning, while meeting the user requirements every single day.
Explore Our Smart City Solutions
Resources
SmartGreen Automates Street Lights of Brazil
Enhancing Smart Lighting
Q&A with Wi-SUN Alliance President & CEO Phil Beecher
Member of the Wi-SUN Alliance
Sub-GHz Transceiver Enables Smart Water Meter
Wi-SUN FAN: The Ideal Smart City Connectivity Solution
Certified Wi-SUN Solution Enables Secure Wireless Connectivity for Smart City