Deloitte: Solar and Wind Play ‘Crucial’ Role within Smart Cities
A new study by Deloitte examines how solar and wind power have become key to achieving smart city goals.
The report, “Renewables (em)power smart cities,” analyzes what Deloitte terms as smart renewable cities (SRCs) and what it takes to make them successful. It notes that smart cities and utilities share an interest in deploying two energy sources that align with their goals: solar and wind. Utilities are embracing wind and solar power as they reach price and performance parity with conventional energy sources across the world, help to cost-effectively balance the grid, and become more valuable assets thanks to increasingly cost-effective storage and other new technologies.
SRCs are strategically positioned to leverage their shared interest in renewables with utilities to more quickly achieve goals.
How Renewables Can Contribute to Smart City Goals
The report states that buildings and transportation account for the most energy use with SRCs and that “renewables are ushering a paradigm shift in how these sectors are powered and how they relate to utilities.”
Equipping smart buildingswith solar panels and/or micro wind turbines, potentially with energy storage, creates distributed energy resources (DER) that can be used for self-generation but can also potentially feed power into a microgrid or central grid. According to Deloitte, utilities are indispensable to two-way communication between DER and the grid.
Read the full report here.
Source: energymanagertoday
