Urban energy conservation strategy in the age of large data

Wus Dan

Big data, cloud computing, Internet, this is the most popular word and topic nowadays. Whether and how to apply these new technologies to the city energy conservation is a great revelation and challenge.

At the 11th session of the Green Habitat Forum, Committee members of the Forum, the United States Energy Foundation, the director of construction projects, Doctor Mo Chun to New York as an example to show you a useful direction: by means of administrative order management, statistics of urban building energy consumption information, and all publicly share, encourage market participation in data analysis, Jointly promote energy efficiency in urban buildings.

Mo contend Spring in accept "the first financial daily" reporter interview, said that the building energy consumption data of the public and the target for the city energy-saving can play a great role in promoting, this is the concept of the first issue, rather than technical issues.

"Number" in mind

The world is in the age of big data. Finding and exploiting any effective information from the complex, exploding data is becoming a consensus.

In Mo contend for spring, the country before making any energy-saving policy, the key is to know their own energy data, to know their own "how much", do have a knowing. But in fact, in the construction industry, our country does not have clear data, how to do well?

At present, most of the domestic research on building energy consumption and data statistics are only for individual buildings, lack of urban overall statistics.

Mo fight Spring to our correspondent said, although now many provinces and cities in China to do building information energy consumption monitoring platform, but no city can exactly put all the building energy consumption figure out, nor any city to use the information collected. "We're just collecting data and showing it in graphs, but that's not the goal, and our goal is to use that information to conserve energy," he said. ”

After more than 20 years of energy conservation in China and the United States, Mo won a good understanding of the current energy-saving situation in the two countries. He thinks New York has a prominent role in using large data to conserve energy in cities.

New York's former mayor, Bloomberg, has proposed that New York cut emissions by 30% by 2030, and 70% of energy consumption in construction. In order to achieve this goal, Bloomberg must be able to ascertain the current energy consumption of most buildings in order to remedy the situation.

According to Mo Techun, Bloomberg passed parliament legislation, the final request to take a mandatory way, all 5000 square meters above the building, the energy consumption data must be disclosed, otherwise it will be punished accordingly. It took him only 2 years to master the energy consumption data of all the buildings (including dwellings and public buildings) of the New York of 5000 square meters, and to divide the New York into areas according to the intensity of energy consumption.

Openness and marketization

The advantage of data disclosure lies in the full marketization, which can mobilize the whole society to promote the energy conservation of the city.

Still taking New York as an example, Bloomberg's approach spawned a number of quality building energy-efficiency services that created a new energy-saving industry. Urban building energy consumption data need to be audited, Bloomberg not set up the administrative license beforehand, but let the market do, and finally through the power of the market to give birth to quality audit company.

Mo Chun also introduced the United States Department of Energy official online on all housing, commercial buildings, energy supply and other relevant data are open to the public, and the Government encourages the use of these data, especially the competition to see who can develop better use of tools, the published data development and utilization of better, give incentives.

At present, the United States has emerged a large number of energy data analysis companies, are based on the above public information to do. It is also because of the disclosure of information, the United States this year 10 cities are carrying out a public information and the target of the competition.

In Mo contend for spring, the strategy based on public Information analysis is the road of urban development. In traditional mode, the government controls the vast majority of information, dominates the market, and closed, isolated "information Island" is a barrier to form large data. There is a need for a new paradigm in which governments allow this information to flow through the marketplace, allowing markets to use information to generate new services.

"In the big data age, we need not just new energy-saving strategies, but information sharing," he said. "Mo Chun says the sharing of public information is the starting point for big data, depending on whether policymakers are determined to do it." Policymakers need to be aware that the openness and alignment of energy consumption data will play a big role in promoting urban energy efficiency, rather than keeping it closed as a matter of privacy or national security.

In the final analysis, the government needs to change its functions, establish, supervise and perfect the public energy consumption system and let the market do its work.