Smart cities: Living space for future dreams
How will we be living and working in future?
The visions and ideas for the antroposphere of the future are as many and diverse as never before. Called all over the world “smart cities”, these intelligent developments embody huge potential for innovation and sustainability. The possibilities of digitisation, networking, and innovative technologies have long since emerged from their futuristic aura.
Berlin too is pursuing a smart city strategy that is setting the course towards sustainable urban development. If cities are to evolve along both intelligent and ecological lines, the issues of energy generation and use must adopt a key role. As one of the most successful high tech locations in Europe, Adlershof is both home to smart operators in this field and the forge of its own energy concepts targeting a 30 percent reduction in primary energy consumption till the site is at full capacity. In 2015, the wide-ranging experience gained from companies based in the Technology Park and from its own realisations launched WISTA-MANAGEMENT GMBH (WISTA) to the status of partner on the Berlin NetzwerkE.
The Berlin NetzwerkE is a joint collaboration of currently thirteen network and associated partners from various sectors, all working on the development of innovative, yet practicable solutions for the interaction of people and technologies in energy economy. The network management is based in the Berlin energy agency BEA. It has cooperated with a range of partners in launching and supervising model projects for energy efficiency and the use of renewable energies in Berlin. The central subjects here were building automation systems, local energy management, waste water heat recovery, innovative lighting solutions, and the use of combined heat and power (CHP), solar heat, and photovoltaics. These project activities are flanked by a transfer of interdisciplinary knowledge, of equally crucial importance against the backdrop of growing digitisation. The Berlin NetzwerkE partners are also integrating this know-how in the intelligent energy showcase SINTEG launched by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in the north-east of Germany (WindNODE).
Represented by WISTA, the Adlershof Technology Park is a key partner on the network, harvesting further ideas for future work at the interface between energy and digital economy – and turning the smart city into an actual living space for future dreams.
Mechthild Zumbusch
Project Manager at the InformE Division,
Berliner Energieagentur GmbH