Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Written By: Sebastien Walker, Head of Business Development, Mixed Use and Real Estate, ENGIE Southeast Asia

Sebastien Walker, Head of Business Development, Mixed Use and Real Estate, ENGIE Southeast Asia

In our era of relentless urbanisation, up to 70% of the global population is projected to reside in cities by 2050. With Southeast Asia bracing for 100 million rural-to-urban migrations by 2030, the development of more efficient and sustainable cities—smart city—is crucial.

While technological advancement has been an integral component of smart city development, the challenge remains to increase the sustainability of these cities. As their populations swell, many cities across the developing world could face energy shortages as early as 2025. This is bad news for any smart city.

This pressure is pushing today’s smart cities to transform into innovation hubs, as they test and prove solutions to decouple economic development from carbon emissions and foster urban sustainability. In Southeast Asia, we are already seeing this evolution as its smart cities develop and scope to scale such solutions across the region’s current and emerging population centres.

The Pillars of Tomorrow’s Smart City

Southeast Asia’s move towards smart, sustainable cities revolves around three core pillars: digitalisation [utilising IoT and data for real-time decision-making, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for systems’ efficiency and optimisation], decarbonisation (prioritising energy sobriety, or rather reduction in consumption, along with energy efficiency and green energy), and decentralisation (enabling local, sustainable energy production to increase access to green energy and reduce dependence on traditional grid systems).

By incorporating these three pillars, Southeast Asia can embrace its role in the global urbanisation boom while staying on course for its net-zero by 2050 commitments.

The Role of Sustainable Infrastructure

A smart city requires digital solutions in buildings, mobility, and energy systems. Fully integrating digital solutions not only enhances operational efficiency but also aids in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions, thereby supporting more sustainable development.

For example, digital platforms incorporating fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) with AI-driven predictive maintenance algorithms can drive direct impact on environmental sustainability, from reducing electricity wastage on unnecessary lighting to optimising cooling.

However, layering digitalisation onto legacy infrastructure models is both challenging and ultimately insufficient to unlock the full sustainability potential of a truly smart city. To be truly smart and sustainable, these cities must take the leap to implement tomorrow’s infrastructure, today.

Sustainable infrastructure, integral to optimising resource utilisation while minimising waste and environmental impacts, plays a crucial role in Southeast Asia’s emerging smart and sustainable cities. In the region, cooling, electric vehicle charging, and low-carbon energy infrastructure will play the most pivotal roles.

A Breath of Fresh Air: Low-Carbon Cooling

Cooling is vital in Southeast Asia. A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlights the imminent challenge: by 2040 meeting the region’s cooling needs will require an additional 200 GW of electrical capacity, consume up to 30% of the region’s peak electricity, and raise emissions. Addressing this challenge calls for leveraging low-carbon, highly efficient air-conditioning infrastructure, such as district cooling systems (DCS).

As a smart city embracing sustainability, Singapore is already deploying its own district cooling infrastructure and is Southeast Asia’s testbed for smart city solutions.

The nation is focused on advancing sustainable infrastructure through projects such as the Punggol Digital District (PDD) and the ENGIE-SIT District Cooling Centre of Excellence. These initiatives contribute to Singapore’s Smart Nation ambitions by trialling and optimising a sustainable solution for one of the most critical urban needs, cooling, fostering innovation and developing a qualified talent pipeline for the region.

“While technological advancement has been an integral component of smart city development, the challenge remains to increase the sustainability of these cities. As their populations swell, many cities across the developing world could face energy shortages as early as 2025. This is bad news for any smart city.”

Deploying DCS and efficient cooling at scale across Southeast Asia could potentially reduce the region’s 2040 projected electricity demand for cooling by up to 110 TWh, resulting in significantly reducing CO₂ emissions by almost 30 million tonnes, and contribute to the avoidance of other emissions that impact public health.

Driving Down Emissions: Enabling EV Adoption

Cars contribute over 3.2 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, equating to approximately 15% of global CO₂ emissions. With over a third of the global vehicle population in Asia (543 million of the 1.47 billion recorded in 2023) and a projected 10% growth in car ownership across Southeast Asia in the near term, transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs) is crucial for smart and sustainable cities in the region.

In Singapore, the transition to sustainable mobility is marked as a critical component of achieving its net-zero by 2050 goals as detailed in the Singapore Green Plan. Acknowledging the scale and availability of EV charging infrastructure as the most critical driver of EV adoption, the city-state has targeted to make every HDB town EV-ready by 2025 and will deploy 60,000 EV charging points island wide by 2030.

Beyond Singapore, new smart cities in the region are scoping sustainable mobility into their early development phases. For example, in Malaysia, Gamuda Land is developing multiple sustainable townships with plans to include not only energy efficient, low-carbon cooling, but sustainable mobility and even green energy production from the start.

A Decentralised Approach: Increasing Access to Green Energy

There has been a sharp uptick in energy demand across ASEAN member states, with growth of more than 80% between 2000 and 2019. Harnessing the region’s rich renewable energy potential, especially solar and wind, can potentially add 300 GW of new renewable capacity by 2030 and cut 75% of energy-related CO2 emissions by 2050.

However, renewables currently cover only about 20% of the region’s electricity needs, with fossil fuels dominating local energy mixes. As Southeast Asia increasingly becomes the world’s manufacturing hub of choice, meeting its growing energy demands sustainably will necessitate much greater access to renewable energy. Tapping on decentralised production models can help accelerate this required growth.

As Southeast Asia pursues universal electrification by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050

its emerging smart cities are leading the way. Guided by the principles of energy efficiency and energy sovereignty, these cities are incorporating decentralised production to enable the flexibility required to empower local communities to swiftly and efficiently incorporate renewable energy in their power mixes.

These decentralised systems whether supplementing existing grid power or providing clean energy where grids are not available, reduce transmission losses, promote innovation, and enhance energy security, making them ideal for increasing access to green energy at scale. This is proving particularly relevant in archipelagic nations like the Philippines with rich renewable energy potential and considerable geographical grid access and development challenges.

Concurrent with energy sovereignty is the concept of energy sobriety, which emphasises the conscious reduction in energy consumption through technological innovation and behavioural change. Smart city initiatives like intelligent grids, energy-efficient buildings, and sustainable transportation networks are paving the way for smarter energy usage, ensuring that every unit of energy is utilised to its full potential.

By utilising environmentally friendly infrastructure in smart city development, Southeast Asia can establish a global standard for responsible urban development. This approach will unlock the full potential of digitalisation, decarbonisation, and decentralisation, paving the way for the smart and sustainable cities of the smart city era.

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