Arriving in Prosumer City 2030
Hi, I am Jennifer. My boyfriend, Rob & I have just moved to the new Prosumer City 2030. Prosumer City is the latest residential area and it’s a really cool and smart place to be! When we arrived at our new home, offers from various utility providers with the best rates and services according to our personalized needs were already waiting for us. And not only that – thanks to machine learning, they also factored in the expected energy production of our new solar panel on the roof of our new house. All we needed to do was choose from the different options, click on ‘accept’ using our smart home digital assistant and we were good to go. And digital assistants help the utility to better manage the demand on their network across the entire city. Could it be any easier?
Becoming a true prosumer
As an environmental engineer, I love the fact that I can now produce my own energy using the solar panel – and if we don’t consume all of the energy ourselves, our new utility provider redistributes the energy and we get a credit on our next utility bill. We can use the new Digital Energy Controller (DEC app) to view current energy production and consumption and receive constant notifications if something unusual occurs, such as a potential outage or peak consumption. The DEC is super practical because we can access the app from anywhere: from our home digital assistant, in the car or on our smart phones. The DEC autonomously looks after all of our energy streams, including our own solar panel, the wall batteries, our electric car, appliances, heating, air conditioning, and the alarm system. The DEC ensures that the right choices are made for us. However, we can still override the settings to personalize it even further. The system uses predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to ensure that the temperature is pleasant when we are at home, whilst saving energy while we are out.
Being a prosumer rocks!
The new services offered by our utility provider go way beyond managing our energy consumption at home. Yesterday, I registered to test drive a new bike at a local store. Here, in Prosumer City 2030, the retail store knows that I have an electric car and immediately reserved a charging spot in front of the mall for me. The destination address was automatically transferred to the onboard unit of my electric car. And the dashboard on my DEC shows me the charged battery level and the fastest route to the bicycle store. On arrival, the charging spot, my electric car, and our new home controller powered by the utility’s backend systems and using blockchain technology, negotiated the best charging conditions for me - taking into account the utilities dynamic pricing structure and the solar energy production produced by our solar panels at home.
Once the negotiation was finalized -which, by the way only takes a few seconds- the charging of my e-car started. I can see the negotiated rate, required energy amount and the source from which energy will be taken on my DEC app – and I was so happy to see, that over 80% of the required energy actually came from our solar panels and that I only have to pay 2 EUR compared to 8 EUR if I had used energy solely originating from the charging spot.
While I went to test the new bike, my electric car was charging. I really liked the bike, by the way, and decided to buy it! It’s a brand-new generation of mountain bike. It costs a total of 2.000 Euros but is totally worth the money! And whilst I walked back to my car, my DEC smartwatch app notified me that the store has given me a 100 kWh energy voucher, and one for a 45 minute guided mountain bike tour for two people. I can’t wait to tell Rob!
The first few weeks here in Prosumer City 2030 have already been fantastic! Living in a smart city where my digital, yet super secure data trail of my modern energy lifestyle is collected to make my daily life easier and environmental friendlier, gives me a really good feeling - knowing that my utilities provides me with personalized services that empower me to make a positive impact on the sustainability of our community every day. Becoming an intelligent digital prosumer has truly energized our lives!
If you want to learn more on
Prosumers and Urban Sustainability, please come to
Barcelona and visit us at booth
C349 at the
Smart City Expo World Congress from 13-15 November 2018.