(bouncy music)
- [Narrator] Digi-Key Electronics presents,
City Digital,
a three-part series brought to you by
Supplyframe,
Microchip technology,
and TE Connectivity.
In this episode,
we look at the rising energy demands
from both growing populations
and new forms of technology across smart cities.
- And what I've learned
is that the technology changes quickly
and you have to keep up with it or be left behind.
- Obviously it's about the population,
the pollution,
the resources,
the livability.
It's the education,
and so on.
- [Narrator] Innovations like floating solar panels
and cutting edge battery technology will offer
new ways to compliment existing energy solutions,
powering the future for the citizens of City Digital.
(upbeat music)
The town of Healdsburg, California
has its eye on the future,
constructing the largest floating solar project
in the United States.
White Pine Renewables CEO Evan Riley
explains what led to this unique project,
and how it represents a potential avenue
for larger cities to future-proof their energy solutions.
- So the project originated
from an idea that
placing
objects on top of the water
could reduce algal growth
and reduce evaporation.
And the city of Healdsburg evaluated
different options.
And instead of paying millions of dollars to cover the water
with shade balls,
they've realized that they could
float solar panels on the water.
And that would also provide electricity
at a discount to what they're paying from the local utility.
So we see cities like Healdsburg
as Petri dishes
for ideas
that can be large,
and
game-changing for
national metropolises.
Because in a city like Healdsburg,
it's possible for a project of this size,
which is roughly 5 million Watts,
to provide 8% of the energy
to the city.
That helps the city,
one, meet their clean energy needs.
Two, save money on their bills.
And then three,
is the city wants the ability
to island,
and provide electricity
to key components of infrastructure within the city's grid.
That includes hospitals,
gas stations,
and grocery stores.
So having local distributed generation is part
of that long-term plan to get energy resilience.
(soft bouncy music)
- [Narrator] Jonathan Catchpole from TE Connectivity
shares how his team of engineers
are designing ,
and developing resistive solutions for various industries.
- Energy savings is a big motivator.
A big driving force is to move from
incandescence to LED lighting
and then to add controls.
It's to
to turn the light source on and off,
but laterally we're seeing more to do with
dimming to save energy that way.
And then I think moving forward,
we're going to see
more work with sensors
being plugged into the luminaire
so that
you can get other savings
that aren't necessarily energy savings.
So for example,
a municipality that might make savings
by
only emptying bins
that are full.
So you have sensors in the bins
that talk to the street lights to say, "I'm full.
I need emptying."
- [Narrator] According to ENERGY STAR,
the average commercial building wastes 30% of the energy
it consumes on a yearly basis.
Sam parks, Chief Product Officer
at Sapient Industries
explains how previously
untapped usage data can lead
to smarter decisions about energy management.
- We're trying to solve the problem that is
energy metering,
and smart building technology has completely ignored.
30% of
building energy consumption.
Entirely.
That 30% is plug load.
So it's the energy that's consumed by
devices that are plugged in,
and those have been entirely ignored.
The outlet hasn't changed since its inception
and nothing has really changed
because there was this myth.
Plug loads constituted an insignificant portion
of building energy consumption.
And it turns out we were just wildly wrong.
Everything is plugged in.
All of our businesses run off of equipment
that is plugged in.
Sapient's the only one
attempting to fill the hole that was missing.
That was just managing all that equipment at the outlet.
In high efficiency buildings,
plug load can reach
over 50% of the total building energy consumption.
And when we were talking about waste,
how much of that can be eliminated?
Over half
of all of that energy that's plugged load
it ends up being waste.
It's the kind of waste that we can easily automate out.
It's the waste after hours.
It's everything outside of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
And our roadmap of addressing that is we can
eliminate total building energy consumption.
In some cases
between 15 to 30%,
just by turning things off
after hours.
- [Narrator] Hermann Reiter, Senior Director
of global strategic program development
and EMEA supplier development at Digi-Key Electronics
shares with us,
the company's role as an enabler of innovation,
delivering the components needed to
develop future smart city technologies.
- One of the best words
in this,
around smart cities
and the satellite grid,
is connectivity.
It's sustainability.
Intelligence.
It's prosperity.
It's connect,
smart, innovate.
Obviously it's about the population,
the pollution,
it's the resource,
it's the livability,
it's the education and so on.
For us in Digi-Key,
I think we try to support all the development
in the industries
and not defending the ideas
and then therefore,
really enabling the world's ideas.
And it's all for me around the human.
On the end of the day
to make our life more easy
and more safe.
- [Narrator] Modern cities must look to the future
when developing energy management solutions.
Tomorrow, cities will be powered by the ideas of today.
As innovators take us one step closer to the vision of
City Digital.
In our next episode,
we look at the return to the workplace in the next normal.
And a renewed focus on public health.
Join us as we visit with startups and industry leaders
creating smarter and safer workspaces
through the use of high efficiency
building management and unique safety solutions.