Roadmaps to Utopia: Tales of the Smart City

Notions of the Smart City are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualized as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealized smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimization of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasize the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilizing a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them

What does the future hold for utility electricity efficiency programs?

This study develops projections of future spending and savings from electricity efficiency programs funded by electric utility customers in the United States through 2030 based on three scenarios. Our analysis relies on detailed bottom-up modeling of current state energy efficiency policies, demand-side management and integrated resource plans, and regulatory decisions. The three scenarios represent a range of potential outcomes given the policy environment at the time of the study and uncertainties in the broader economic and state policy environment in each state. We project spending to increase to $8.6 billion in 2030 in the medium scenario, about a 45 percent increase relative to 2016 spending. In the high case, annual spending increases to$11.1 billion in 2030 and remains relatively flat in the low case ($6.8 billion in 2030). Our analysis suggests that electricity efficiency programs funded by utility customers will continue to impact load growth significantly at least through 2030, as savings as a percent of retail sales are forecast at 0.7 percent in the medium scenario and 0.98 percent in the high scenario

Small scale embedded generation (SSEG) in Cape Town: a case study on the impact of Cape Town's SSEG regulation

In recent years, the rapidly diminishing costs of renewable technologies have rendered solar photovoltaics (PV) price competitive at a range of scales. Globally, there has been an increasing proliferation of distributed renewable generation embedded within the electricity network, called Small-Scale Embedded Generation (SSEG). Yet, while such decentralised technologies have taken a central role in discussions on energy transitions in the Global North, their implications in the Global South remain poorly documented. In South Africa, the convergence of a legacy energy system, supply issues, rising electricity prices, and growing environmental awareness as well as rapid urbanisation and persistent poverty is presenting a set of compound challenges for government at all levels and threatens the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon energy system. This study investigates the implications of SSEG on Cape Town's energy transition and assesses the drivers and impacts of regulatory responses. The study adopts a multi-level perspective on sociotechnical transitions deployed at the municipal scale to explore the role of SSEG in a just and sustainable energy transition. This was done along three dimensions using an environmental justice framework proposed by Cock (2004), wherein a green agenda refers to environmental conservation, a brown agenda represents energy impacts on quality of life and development, and a red agenda represents social justice and equality. Achieving a just transition will require attention to each of the three agendas in this framework. Using data from a desktop analysis, policy review and ten semi-structured interviews to investigate the case of Cape Town, the study found that the impacts of SSEG are dependent on the contextual landscape within which this transition is situated. Regulation of SSEG is largely the result of municipal attempts to protect its financial ability to fulfil developmental mandates. Recent regulatory developments have resulted in several unintended consequences which have reduced the extent to which green energy is equitably distributed across the municipal grid, and failed to mitigate revenue impacts of SSEG, and consequently the ability of municipalities to continue developmental agendas. National landscape pressures from increasing electricity prices and continued load-shedding are driving SSEG uptake. In response to these pressures, and municipal regulation, SSEG has adapted to new niches and battery technologies have become increasingly prevalent. Left unregulated SSEG will continue to threaten the financial viability of municipalities and the extent to which the ongoing energy transition in South Africa will be just and equitable. This study contributes to an emerging social-science research agenda into socio-technical transitions and addresses the limited consideration of the implications of disruptive technologies and their regulation at the city regime scale in the Global South

Intitatives for a Smart Economy 2.0

Just like its predecessor, I4SE 2.0 is organized in a manner that focuses on those sectors of the local economy identified by WNYREDC as growth sectors. It identifies initiatives within those sectors where Erie County can make a meaningful contribution. These sectors include: advanced manufacturing, smart growth implementation, workforce development, agriculture, bi-national logistics, energy, and tourism. The report also identifies specific initiatives that Erie County will undertake in other important areas, beyond the WNYREDC growth sectors, that contribute to a thriving and inclusive local economy. These include quality of life initiatives, as well as those focused on the “blue” economy and enhancement of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency (“ECIDA”)

A hydrogen framework for the East Midlands

Profiles capabilities in midlands-based organisations in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies as a rationale for support of a Midlands hydrogen cluster

Life long learning in rural areas: a report to the Countryside Agency

Lifelong Learning is a broad umbrella term which includes many different kinds of provision and different forms of learning. At its heart is formal learning, often classroom based, or involving paper and electronic media, undertaken within educational institutions such as colleges and universities. It may or may not lead to an award and it includes learning undertaken for vocational reasons as well as for general interest. It encompasses what are sometimes also known as adult education, continuing education, continuing professional development (cpd), vocational training and the acquisition of basic skills. It may also include work-based learning, and may overlap with post compulsory (post 16) education, i.e. with further education and higher education, but normally applies to all ‘adult learning’ i.e. by people over the age of 19, in particular those who are returning to study after completing their initial education. From the perspective of the individual learner, however, non-formal learning (organised, systematic study carried on outside the framework of the formal system) is also important. This forms a continuum with informal learning that occurs frequently in the process of daily living, sometimes coincidentally for example through information media or through interpretive provision (such as at museums or heritage sites ). This report focuses on those aspects of adult learning which are directly affected by government policies, and thus of prime concern for rural proofing