Issues of Information and Communication Technology in Energy Efficient Urban Communities

Urban communities are home to more than half of people in the world today, and will be home to nearly 70% of our population by 2050. As such, communities that are economically and environmentally sustainable are critical to achieving the sustainability of our society as a whole. Communities that are designed and operated to be energy-efficient have the potential to be one of the most effective means to this end. To achieve this potential, as both existing and new cities grow, their energy infrastructures need to evolve, becoming energy-smart to support increased energy conservation and integration of cleaner, renewable energy sources. Information and communication technology (ICT) provides the solutions that enable us to ‘see’ our energy and emissions in real time and could provide the means for optimising systems and processes to make them more efficient. The breadth of solutions will span motor systems, logistics and transport, buildings and electricity grids – across all key economies in the world. The ICT sector has also been forced to evaluate its impact on the environment. Without a doubt, ICT has played a major role in decreasing the resource intensity in society and hence has had a positive impact on environmental sustainability. At the same time, however, ICT has enabled and accelerated development towards more resource-consuming lifestyles, including the rapidly increased resource consumption of ICT itself, and therefore laid stress on the environment. Thus, it is fair to say that ICT is part of the problem. One of the major challenges that the information and communication technology sector faces today is that platforms are being pushed to their physical limits. New material systems and new device architecture complemented by improvised process control have, thus, gained utmost importance. This is where nanotechnology has made a mark. This chapter presents an overview of the smart urban community concept and some challenges that ICT faces in that environment.