Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities provides sustainable economic opportunities through energy innovations

The initiative addresses the growing need for sustainable energy to meet the demand of increasingly urbanised populations, with the solution providing a network-enabled blueprint for successful cities of the future that will run on networked information. The technology builds upon Cisco's networked sustainability platform to further increase energy efficiency, create new tools for 'energy-aware' city management and enable economic opportunity, as well as provide an increase in the quality of life for citizens.

"Today's announcement of Smart Connected Buildings as Cisco's latest Emerging Technology highlights the strength of our internal innovation engine for identifying and developing solutions in key market adjacencies," said Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President, Emerging Technologies Group.

"Our aim is to create a new set of systems and solutions that take the network and extend the power of the platform to deliver sustainable energy management from information technology and commercial buildings all the way through to smart grid and the home," he added.

A key component of the Smart+Connected Communities vision is the Cisco Network Building Mediator, a Smart Connected Buildings solution that provides intelligence over the IP network to interconnect and enable building systems; utilities such as heating, lighting, electrical, security, ventilation and cooling. The service will assist with the building of smart and energy-efficient buildings of the future; providing operators and owners of these buildings with new ways of managing how energy is used, based on policies that make sense for occupants.

Cisco believes that the network has the potential to create a significant impact on global energy efficiency and reduction of Green House Gas emissions by further integrating information technology into Smart Connected Buildings. Smart Connected Buildings first solution, Cisco Network Building Mediator, provides an architecture that allows building operation managers to easily monitor, measure and act on energy systems while adding renewable technologies such as solar, wind and fuel cells as well as energy-efficiency programs such automated demand-response programs to reduce capital and operating expenditures.

"Within 20 minutes of the demand-response signal from the utility, the Cisco Network Building Mediator reduces lighting by 50% and raises the temperature set point by four degrees, shedding 1.1 megawatts," revealed David Shroyer, controls engineer at NetApp, the California-based computer storage and data management company.

"In conjunction with other systems, the Cisco solution has helped us reduce energy consumption in our Sunnyvale location by 18 million kilowatt hours in 18 months. We have reduced our carbon footprint and have saved an estimated $2m in energy costs," he added.

The new Smart Connected Buildings solution, Cisco's latest emerging technology, aims to enable sustainable energy reduction and the future-proofing of facilities through a flexible integration of new technologies that help deliver energy efficiency and environmental stewardship for Smart+Connected Communities. Wim Elfrink, chief globalisation officer and executive vice president, Cisco Services, says that the technology will help to create cities of the future that are driven by information and that are environmentally friendlier.

"Over the next three to five years, as more people around the world migrate to urban centres, 3 billion individuals around the world will connect to the Internet," he said.

"Cisco envisages a future where successful communities and cities will run on networked information, and where information technology will help the world better manage its energy and environmental challenges. Cities of the future, and many innovative cities now, are addressing the issues and opportunities of this new world by thinking about the network as the platform for economic development, better city management and an improved quality of life for citizens. Everything connected to the network in these smart+connected communities can be greener," he added.