Siemens’ answers for smart city solutions

An unique invention

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 90% of the world’s urban population breathes in air with pollutant levels that are much higher than the recommended threshold. Nearly 7 million of people die per year from diseases caused by air pollution. Accelerating speed of urbanization has put great challenges on city’s infrastructure and laid out the utmost need for the development of green and smart strategies. However, the common problem facing many city leaders is the lack of data and necessary tools to support them in decision making.

Siemens’ solutions for cities offer significant advantages and can easily be replicated for other infrastructure projects

Thanks to active participation from Siemens, a new air quality control system was created to address the above problem. According to Mr. Klaus Heidinger – Head of City Solutions of Siemens: “This is a solution that can not only monitor and forecast air pollution levels for the next 3-5 days with the precision level up to 90%, but can also simulate the effect of short-term measures taken by the city.” The integration of air quality forecast with prediction of the effect from policies and technologies makes this solution unique. “Our air pollution prediction is based on a sophisticate algorithm that works with an artificial neural network. Using data on historic air pollution, weather and traffic patterns, Siemens provides forecast for air quality and concrete solutions,” added Mr. Klaus Heidinger.

In this solution, cities can choose between 17 short-term measures and simulate their impacts in the next 3-5 day period, helping them proactively stay within daily or hourly air pollution limits. The accumulated data will help cities make better decision to improve citizen’s lives. Beside assisting cities in short-term measures, this solution will gradually improve quality of the air in upcoming years.

Mr. Georg Pammer, Managing Director of Aspern Smart City Research (ASCR) shared that Siemens’ solutions for cities offer significant advantages and can easily be replicated for other infrastructure projects because of reasonable investment, low risk and yet great benefits for cities.

Aspern City – Europe’s most innovative and sustainable energy efficiency demonstration project

As part of the research association Aspern Smart City Research (ASCR), Siemens is working on the digitalization of infrastructure, on increasing energy efficiency in both power grids and buildings as well as on linking buildings to the power supply in the Seestadt Aspern. The "Seestadt Aspern" stands out today as a globally recognized smart city role model — in 2016 it was honored with the World Smart City Award.

Aspern City – Europe’s most innovative and sustainable energy efficiency demonstration project

Until 2023, 45 million euros will be invested into researching the urban energy future. The "Seestadt Aspern" is going to be transformed into a thinking city: It identifies when energy is cheapest and adapts its energy usage accordingly. For Siemens the participation in the research association stands in direct relation to explicitly usable output. The knowledge gained leads to new applications for smart grids and building technologies and therefore to significant technological progress. Based on customer requirements, Siemens develops applications such as for example smart maintenance to support the operation, maintenance and service of a building. Or smart charging to enable an improved integration of charging infrastructure into buildings as well as into the distribution network and to accelerate e-mobility.

In his introduction about Aspern project, Mr. Pammer stressed the premium benefits of Siemens’ solutions, that are:

• One point of contact: Siemens manage the project from planning, implementation, finance and maintenance.
• Reduction in complexity: Instead of managing orders and invoice for a group of contractors, Siemens is now the only one.
• Reduction in advance payment: Siemens calculates monthly rents and quarterly operation costs, which replace a huge advance payment from the cities.
• Sector management and operation quality control: Siemens can operate and manage a sector for maximum of 25 years.
• Trusted partner: Siemens offers secured finance solution for cities.

In the first phase of the project around 70 research questions were answered and several solutions for smart buildings and network infrastructure as well as 15 specific prototypes developed. During that time Siemens researchers handed in 30 invention disclosures and applied eleven of them for a patent. In 2017 Mr. Andreas Lugmaier from Siemens Corporate Technology in Vienna, and Mr. Friederich Kupzog from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), were awarded the Siemens Inventor of the Year accolade in the category "Open Innovation" for their technologies in the field of power grids of the future.

The emphasis of the upcoming program period will be on continued research into the intelligent networking of buildings, grids and markets. Furthermore, waste heat will be explored in-depth, also in terms of a possible solution for room-cooling applications. Questions regarding the smart charging of e-cars as well as their potential utilization as future energy storage systems will also be answered.

Speaking about the excitement of moving to a 50m2 apartment in the Aspern project, a citizen said that he and his family really enjoyed living here because of the fresh air and the intuitive comfort of the building, which is provided by Siemens Building Management System (BMS). His awareness about energy efficiency has improved greatly along the way. In parallel with renewable energy, residents in this project can use electricity from city grid if they want to. This has also made their life more comfortable.

Siemens BMS has also been widely employed in Vietnam bringing safety and comfort for hundreds of residential, hotel and resort and office buildings throughout the country.

P.T.O