Pressure is building to get serious about climate change, but
countries are long on plans and goals but short on actions to
address it, says Sander van 't Noordende, group chief executive for
Accenture's resources division.
This has led to many firms doing "green" things to cut costs,
but this can have only limited effect, he says.
It has been hard to find the right organisational entity that
can act on a scale large enough to be meaningful, but is still
controllable and replicable, van 't Noordende says. The experience
of national initiatives such as the NHS's National Programme for I
have shown how hard it is to manage successfully very large
projects with many players.
The missing link has been the City. "The role cities can play
has been 'underweighted' by policy makers," van 't Noordende
says.
Cities can provide the scale, scope and integration of utility
services such as communications, energy, transport, waste, and
water that are big enough to make a difference. They are crucial
too because cities are the main generators of CO2. Without their
buy-in, any national plan is doomed, he says.
Maximising the efficient generation, distribution and
consumption of energy will require more information as well as the
ability for household and industry demand to be smoothed and
matched to supply, says Noordende.
To explore what works Accenture has started
SmartGrid
city pilot projects in Amsterdam, Boulder (Colorado), Belgorod
(Russia) and China. Accenture is also speaking to officials in the
world's fastest-growing cities, such as Sao Paulo, Lagos and Mexico
City to get them to sign up. These SmartGrid cities could become
models that other towns could emulate, he says.
He says the SmartGrid concept is more than so-called Smart
Metering. Smart metering allows energy suppliers and consumers to
watch and change consumption on a minute by minute basis, if need
be, because the meter feeds back consumption data to a central
database via a communications network.
The network is in fact the essential link to allow the systems
integration that leads to greater efficiency, he says. Putting in a
separate network only for smart metering would cost billions and be
an inefficient use of capital. But making the smart meter device
also the network controller for a complete home or business
automation and communication system is clearly an option, he
says.
"Perhaps the time has come for the people planning Digital
Britain to talk to their colleagues in the energy sector if Britain
is to meet its climate change commitments," he says.