GARDENS BY THE BAY

Gardens by the Bay - Singapore

Gardens by the Bay is an integral part of a strategy by the Singapore government to transform Singapore from a "Garden City" to a "City in a Garden". The stated aim is to raise the quality of life by enhancing greenery and flora in the city.

The park consists of three waterfront gardens: Bay South Garden, Bay East Garden and Bay Central Garden.The largest of the three gardens is Bay South Garden, standing at 54 hectares.

Sustainability in the Gardens

Underlying the concept of Gardens by the Bay are the principles of environmental sustainability. Much effort was made to plan and design for sustainable cycles in energy and water throughout Bay South Garden.

The conservatories are a statement in sustainable engineering and apply a suite of cutting-edge technologies for energy-efficient solutions in cooling. This suite of technologies can help to achieve at least 30% savings in energy consumption, compared to conventional cooling technologies.

Eleven of the Supertrees are embedded with environmentally sustainable functions. Some have photovoltaic cells on their canopies to harvest solar energy for lighting up the Supertrees., while others are integrated with the Conservatories and serve as air exhaust receptacles.

The Gardens lake system incorporates key ecological processes and functions as a living system. It acts as a natural filtration system for water from the Gardens catchment and provides aquatic habitats for biodiversity such as fishes and dragonflies.

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Gardens by the Bay - Sustainability Efforts

COMMONENERGY DATA MAPPER

CommONEnergy - Data Mapper

The European wholesale and retail sector is the big marketplace of Europe, contributing with around 11% of the EU's GDP. Therefore, sustainability of the retail sector may significantly contribute to reaching the long-term environmental and energy goals of the EU. Within the retail sector, shopping malls are of particular interest due to their structural complexity and multi-stakeholders decisional process, due to the high potential of energy savings and carbon emissions reduction, as well as due to their importance and influence in shopping tendencies and lifestyle.

More background information, data and the typical features of European shopping malls is available in the CommONEnergyReport Shopping malls features in EU-28 + Norway.

How to use

Navigate through data series on the top left menu and click data to be displayed.

To download/export map and graph data series, click on the "Excel" button.

To see the sources of the particular data series, click on the links below graph.

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CommONEnergy

THE NEW ERA OF SOLAR GLASS

Transparent Luminescent Solar Concentrator

A team of researchers at Michigan State University has developed a new type of solar concentrator that when placed over a window creates solar energy while allowing people to actually see through the window.

It is called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator and can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a clear surface.

And, according to Richard Lunt of MSU’s College of Engineering, the key word is “transparent.”

Research in the production of energy from solar cells placed around luminescent plastic-like materials is not new. These past efforts, however, have yielded poor results – the energy production was inefficient and the materials were highly colored.

“No one wants to sit behind colored glass,” said Lunt, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science. “It makes for a very colorful environment, like working in a disco. We take an approach where we actually make the luminescent active layer itself transparent.”

The solar harvesting system uses small organic molecules developed by Lunt and his team to absorb specific nonvisible wavelengths of sunlight.

“We can tune these materials to pick up just the ultraviolet and the near infrared wavelengths that then ‘glow’ at another wavelength in the infrared,” he said.

The “glowing” infrared light is guided to the edge of the plastic where it is converted to electricity by thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells.

“Because the materials do not absorb or emit light in the visible spectrum, they look exceptionally transparent to the human eye,” Lunt said.

One of the benefits of this new development is its flexibility. While the technology is at an early stage, it has the potential to be scaled to commercial or industrial applications with an affordable cost.

“It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way,” Lunt said. “It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there.”

Lunt said more work is needed in order to improve its energy-producing efficiency. Currently it is able to produce a solar conversion efficiency close to 1 percent, but noted they aim to reach efficiencies beyond 5 percent when fully optimized. The best colored LSC has an efficiency of around 7 percent.

The research was featured on the cover of a recent issue of the journal Advanced Optical Materials.

Other members of the research team include Yimu Zhao, an MSU doctoral student in chemical engineering and materials science; Benjamin Levine, assistant professor of chemistry; and Garrett Meek, doctoral student in chemistry.

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Michigan State University

http://msutoday.msu.edu/

REPOWERMAP

Repowermap.org Objective

repowermap.org is a non-profit initiative to promote renewable energies and energy efficiency by making visible real-world examples and related local information in each person's neighbourhood. To this objective, an interactive map is developed jointly by a large network of organizations, institutions, regional and local authorities and other energy actors. The idea of the initiative is to encourage people to use renewable energies and energy efficiency, by making them aware of concrete examples in their region, their city and in their own neighbourhood. The information presented on the map furthermore aims to facilitate information exchange and the spread of innovative technologies at local level and across borders. Take local action to contribute to climate protection and show it on repowermap.org! The examples and the accompanying information inspire others to take action as well and help them to take the first steps. From 2012 to 2014, the initiative has been supported by the European Union within the framework of the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme, as an initiative to promote renewable energies and energy efficiency by creating synergies in awareness raising between various energy actors and by facilitating information exchange for the related technologies. Within the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme, the initiative has gathered more than 40'000 concrete project examples for the use of renewable energies and energy efficiency and related local information.  The countries where most examples have been gathered within this programme are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, and Poland, as an initial focus had been put on these countries. Further information about objectives and achievements in building up the repowermap.org initiative within the framework of the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme can be found here. Based on these achievements, the initiative is on the one hand continued in these countries, and on the other hand extended to more and more other countries. Since 2011, the initiative aims to promote the use of renewable energies also in developing countries by facilitating know-how exchange and contributing to capacity building, in particular in Central America and West Africa, with financial support from the alumni organisation of students in environmental sciences from the ETH in Zürich, the Swiss Confederation through the REPIC programme, and the Lottery fund of the Canton of Bern, and since 2013 also the ECOWAS Renewable Energy Fund. The initiative was founded in Bern in 2008 by the non-profit association repowermap.org, which was specifically created to carry out this initiative and to maintain it in the long-term. In 2010, the non-profit association repowermap.eu was founded in Liechtenstein, with a view to advance the initiative in other European countries in cooperation with a network of European partners, and to ensure its continuation in these countries in the long term. From the beginning, the idea has been to make with this initiative a contribution to climate protection, by promoting renewable energies and energy efficiency with this common interactive map.

Who adds examples to the map?

People like you! If you have installed a renewable energy system or if you have constructed an energy efficient building, you are invited to add such project e xamples on repowermap.org. Make your example(s) visible to pass on your experiences and to motivate others to use these technologies as well. Each example is important!

Who has already integrated the map or has made a link to it?

The map from repowermap.org can easily be integrated into the websites of organizations, communes, regions or companies who take part in this initiative. Like this, the available examples are shown at the same time on different websites, increasing the number of people who see them and get inspired. If you integrate the map into your homepage, you can define the filters and settings you want, e.g. to show only a specific region or only your reference installations. + info https://www.repowermap.org/index.php?ln=en

NYCENERGY

Estimated Total Annual Building Energy Consumption at the Block and Lot Level for NYC

The map provides an estimate of the building energy consumption ("delivered" energy as opposed to "primary" energy) throughout New York City. The estimate is specific to the weather of New York, specific to the particular function of the building and specific to the built-up area of the building. This page describes how energy usage was estimated. 

This site was developed as part of a NSF IGERT funded research project in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University.

The annual building energy consumption was estimated using ZIP code-level energy usage, on electricity, natural gas, fuel oil and steam consumption for the year 2009 as well as building information obtained from MapPLUTO (a NYC Department of City Planning geographic database). 

With these two data sources through statistical regression we were able to estimate annual energy usage intensities. Energy usage intensity (EUI), is annual energy consumption divided by the total building floor area. These are "delivered" energy intensities and not "primary" energy intensities. This distinction is critical since "primary" energy utilized to produce electricity can vary with the type of power plant.

These intensities were specific to the following building functions:

• Residential, 1-4 family
• Residential, multi-family
• Education
• Health
• Warehouse
• Office
• Store

In addition, Residential multi-family estimates for Manhattan and Bronx are specific to those boroughs. Office estimates for Manhattan are specific only to Manhattan.

Energy intensities were first estimated for electricity and for all fuels (including steam supply). We used the data from the residential energy consumption survey (RECS) and the commercial building energy consumption survey (CBECS) to break the energy use down into specific end uses:

• Space heating
• Space cooling
• Water heating
• Base electric applications (lighting and plug loads).

Note: It was assumed that cooling is provided from electricity and all heating is provided from fuels or steam. The "tax lot" level estimates were for each of these end uses and for each building function listed above. The map displays no data for building areas not classified in the referenced databases. The figure below shows the EUI estimates by building type:

Finally, for visualization purposes only, the energy use was normalized by the tax lot land area. The tax lot level caption also provides the built-up area of the buildings on the tax lot. So one can also easily compute the energy use based on the built-up area if one needs that estimate.

What Is The Map?

The map provides an estimate of building energy consumption. Take a typical building on an avenue in Manhattan. Often, the first floor is used for a store and theremaining floor area is office or residential. Our map shows that, if this building has 10,000 square meters of floor area, the first floor is used for stores and the rest is used for residential. On average, this building consumes 3.2 million kWh.

Does The Map Show the Actual Energy Usage of My Building?

The map is not based on building-specific data. The map does not represent buildings that may be more or less efficient than others. An efficient building may use less than portrayed on the map and a less efficient building may use more. We encourage users to compare their buildings, but keep in mind that many factors affect a building's energy usage.

Map created by the Sustainable Engineering Lab 

(formerly Modi Research Group) using MapBox

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http://sel-columbia.github.io/nycenergy/

SMART CITIZEN

Open source technology for citizens' political participation in smarter cities

Smart Citizen is a platform to generate participatory processes of people in the cities. Connecting data, people and knowledge, the objective of the platform is to serve as a node for building productive and open indicators, and distributed tools, and thereafter the collective construction of the city for its own inhabitants.

The Smart Citizen project is based on geolocation, Internet and free hardware and software for data collection and sharing ( Smart Citizen Kit - SCK , RESTful api, Mobile App and, the web community ), and (in a second phase) the production of objects; it connects people with their environment and their city to create more effective and optimized relationships between resources, technology, communities, services and events in the urban environment. Currently it is being deployed as initial phase in Barcelona city.

The project is born within Fab Lab Barcelona at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia , both focused centers on the impact of new technologies at different scales of human habitat, from the bits to geography. Other collaborators and partners support this initiative.

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https://smartcitizen.me/

REN21

Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century

http://www.map.ren21.net/

To facilitate the accessibility of renewable energy knowledge, REN21 has developed a web-based interactive tool to guide users through relevant renewable energy information. The REN21 Renewables Interactive Map is a research tool for tracking the development of renewable energy throughout the world. It offers a streamlined method for gathering and sharing detailed national-level information on the status of renewable energy policies and regulations, the use of renewable energy technologies, and current investment trends.

Information presented in the Map is compiled from a variety of reports, databases, news announcements, and specific enquiries with official authorities. The Map is also populated with data collected over the course of the yearly formulation of the Renewables Global Status Report (GSR), the most referenced renewable energy report in the world. These sources are used to provide the most accurate and current information on renewable energy policies, targets, shares, installed capacity, and production.

Because of its intuitive interface, the Map allows interested users to easily find sought-after data. It allows for searches by technology or sector, or by the selection of a specific country. In conjunction with the GSR, the Renewables Interactive Map offers an up-to-date, comprehensive, and user-friendly picture of the status of renewables worldwide.

For more information on REN21 and the GSR, please visit:

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http://ren21.net/

http://www.map.ren21.net/