Dr. Soon-Hyung Lee, Technician Chairman of Gwangju Green Energy Technology Subcommittee Posted: February 22, 2021 (Mon) 11:29 Post: February 23, 2021 (Tue) 09:12
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, awareness of the seriousness of the climate crisis has spread, and as the deadline for submitting a long-term response plan according to the UN Climate Convention has arrived, major countries are setting carbon neutral targets one after another. Accordingly, Korea also declared a carbon neutral target in 2050.
Carbon neutral refers to a condition that does not increase the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with the same amount of GHG emissions and absorption. The UN recommends that each country establish a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 to prevent global warming at 1.5℃. I have a bar. The U.S. Biden administration is also taking action, such as achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and rejoining the Paris Agreement. In order to achieve carbon neutrality, the functions of cities must first be improved. The reason is that the energy used by buildings in large cities exceeds 50%, so smart energy must be planned for the completion of smart cities.
Smart City
The main purpose of smart cities is to create cities with excellent habitability, to maintain cities with smart agriculture, smart transportation, smart parking, smart medical care, smart government, and smart energy.
A city is a place where humans become political, economic, and social, and refers to a region with a relatively high population density due to the concentration of population, and it can be understood in this context that we are talking about smart cities in the wake of the mayoral election of Seoul. .
Recently, various problems arising from rapid urbanization, such as traffic, environment, crime, safety, and energy problems, have become a key issue for cities and humans. As a solution to these urban problems, smart cities, a complex combining advanced technology and energy, are emerging as an important alternative.
The smart city that we want to realize is a comprehensive concept representing the future of urban development in which all technologies based on sustainability are fused.
Korea’s smart city project was the first U-city project implemented in 2003. Since 2000, it has spread in the form of combining new city space and financial resources with information and communication networks.
From 2019 to 2023, it is focusing on establishing a comprehensive plan that suggests the mid- to long-term policy direction, building and distributing integrated platforms, and spreading smart city services.
When we talk about the 4th industrial revolution, the reason that smart city is mentioned as one of the important themes is that we see it as a spatial object that contains all the innovations of the 4th industrial revolution.
Establishing energy smart for successful construction of smart city
Recently, various multinational companies are participating in the smart city field. Specifically, Google has established a company called Sidewalk Labs with the aim of solving urban problems and improving the quality of life with advanced technology.
Google signed an agreement with Toronto, Canada and invested about 55.5 billion won to introduce a smart city project that introduces cutting-edge technologies that integrate energy-based autonomous driving, garbage collection, and transportation systems.
In order to successfully build a smart city, it must be designed with AI-based energy independence. This is also consistent with policies aimed at carbon neutrality. This will achieve the carbon neutral goal by 2050.
The government mandates the Zero Energy Building (ZEB) for public institutions. ZEB is a building that minimizes the energy use of buildings and produces renewable energy to reduce the total energy consumption of buildings to reduce energy and greenhouse gases.
The term “smart energy” to be emphasized here is referred to as “smart energy” in IEC by emphasizing the viewpoint of intelligent energy management in cities.
Smart energy is a concept created when the IEC launched the Smart Energy System Committee (SyC2), which provides standardization information at the system level that encompasses the existing smart grid and energy. Until 2013, the Technical Committee (TC) was in charge of standardization of specific functional topics and related sectors, but as standardization areas where topics from various sectors intersect emerged, in order to overcome these limitations, it went through the intermediate system evaluation group (SEG) stage. System committee (SyC) introduced a system in charge of standardization development. By changing from the existing product and function-oriented approach (smart grid) to an integrated and top-down system approach (smart energy), the relationship between future SEG smart cities and future SEGs and future system resource groups (SRG) It is expected that various standards will be proposed during creation.
The number of companies joining RE100 around the world is increasing, and the number of companies joining in Korea is also increasing. Ten years ago, the government advocated low-carbon green growth, but it failed to reduce greenhouse gases. In the 21st National Assembly, the “Basic Bill for Implementing a Carbonaceous Society for Response to the Climate Crisis” has been proposed by the Democratic Party and is now in full swing.
World-class examples of energy independence and smart city are emerging one after another, and Korea is also vigorously promoting it in each city. We look forward to the completion of a smart city based on energy independence that can comprehensively solve urban problems such as urban traffic congestion, parking, pollution, safety, garbage, and energy problems.