Smart Utilities Enable Smart Cities: Creating the Smart Cities of the Future
By Mike Beehler and Meghan Calabro
Smart cities are coming, and electric utilities should become partners in ushering in this new era. A smart city connects the basic infrastructure of diverse neighborhoods and communities to drive operational excellence, revenue potential and sustainable customer lifestyles. Utilities are in a better position to benefit from this wave than telecom companies or big technology companies such as Google and Amazon. But utilities need to stake their claims now, or their natural advantages will fade.
Electric and gas utilities already have inherent advantages in enabling smart cities. High-capacity broadband is a fundamental part of a smart city. So, while utilities are developing new private networks and advanced technologies to meet the demands of more distributed energy resources, they can position themselves for smart-city opportunities. The formula for this approach can be expressed as distributed energy resources equal distributed generation plus demand-side management plus demand response plus storage.