A solar urban hub with integrated lighting and information system for optimal smart cities efficiency
Commitment to clean energy nowadays should be essential for governments, companies and citizens. Sustainable urban planning helps improve the welfare of the community, shaping public areas into clean and efficient spaces to live. On the other hand, IoT is changing the way in which cities are operating by enabling effective infrastructure management. The Solar Hub is a new concept of solar urban furniture which converts smart street lighting into an IoT enabling smart city tool. Conventional street lighting is associated with high energy and maintenance requirements, resulting in high costs for municipalities. Although energy efficient lighting solutions are gaining ground, they often fall short of addressing the sustainable development of Smart Cities: lack of aesthetic appeal, no-use of solar energy, difficult integration of sensors and smart devices and not designed for a long term retrofitting. SIARQ addresses all these challenges in a single solution, championing a new concept of solar urban furniture. The Solar Hub belongs to the new generation of Cradle to Cradle zero CO2 emissions products entirely powered by the Sun. It stands out by its dome-shaped lightweight photovoltaic module that houses environmental sensors and other smart devices that enable different kinds of monitoring. SIARQ thus actively contributes to overcoming the lack of interoperable solutions and the risk of fragmentation that have been acknowledged by the European Commission as major challenges to the deployment and exploitation of the IoT potential. SIARQ’s business model targets Telecoms, IT service providers and Energy Service Companies as preferential channels to reach the end users and to generate new business models with shared incomes. The phase 1 feasibility study will focus on validating the business model and commercialization strategy, planning of all activities for an in-field pilot in a city environment and elaborating industrialization and marketing plans.