Smart cities are the new name for urbanization. At the same time, it is a bundle of problems that have emerged with urbanization and they needs to be solved. The main reasons for rapid and intensive urbanization are the attractiveness of cities and over-immigration (about 80 percent of total gross value added are produced in cities). Now more than half of the population in our country and the world live in cities. This rapid urbanization or excessive population concentration in or around city centers leads to major problems to be solved. These problems are migration, informality, sheltering need and methods, health, energy management, energy consumption, traffic, waste management (solid waste disposal without damage to nature), air and water pollution, unplanned urbanization, access to resources, water and food production, water and food distribution and security, increased crime rates, increased poverty rate, climate change (loss of agricultural land and water resources, droughts, floods, high temperature increases). Many big and small problems threaten the cities, the city life and the inhabitants.
Today, many problems related to the city are sought through the smart city concept. There is no common definition of smart urbanization accepted by all. The aim is to manage the city’s fields, human resources and various infrastructural investments in the most efficient way around the existing problems, especially by using internet-based, information-enabled technological facilities. All of this is basically done in order to keep the city’s differences and to change and develop in a positive way. Various criteria are used in order to evaluate cities with the concept of smart cities. These include energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, transportation diversity and duration, infrastructure investments, electronic services, resource management, citizens participation, competitiveness, economy, environment (green buildings, green energy, green city planning, zero carbon consumption etc). Smart city performance can be measured with these criteria.
Energy efficiency is one of the most important criteria used in the solution of the problems of urbanization mentioned above. The basic need of smart cities is energy. The most fossil sources are used in energy production. The share of buildings in total energy consumption is 40%. There is 70% energy loss in energy distribution. With smart grids, these losses are tried to be reduced and production / consumption costs are minimized. The first thing that comes to mind in energy efficiency is renewable energy. There are periodic imbalances in renewable power generation. We have minimized this problem in our renewable energy product designs as Istanbul Design House. There is also an increase in the use of renewable energy. The future is in distributed power mechanisms. In energy, consuming it in the same place is of great importance in terms of costs. For this reason, renewable energy offers opportunities for energy efficiency. This is the opportunity that people who produce renewable energy, they are producing energy, then distributing and selling. This opportunity provides permanent changes in consumer behavior and lucrative changes. This will improve the quality of life of city people.
The problems of cities are multidimensional and quite big. As Istanbul Tasarim Evi, we define designing as problem solving. For this reason, smart city is in our interest which looking for solutions to various problems. Among these problems of cities, we have focused to renewable energy. Because one of the biggest problems of smart cities is energy consumption and solution is definitely energy efficiency. There are many studies in this area. As Istanbul Tasarim Evi, we carry out our works with our flexible business model and our own designing method.
Muhammet İkbal GÜN
Founder and Manager