AI4Cities Phase 3 suppliers present their solutions in Paris
This June, The AI4Cities’ suppliers selected in Phase 3 of the project met the Buyers Group in the Cap Digital offices in Paris. Here they presented the progress of their solutions in front of an audience that also included representatives from AI4Cities’ preferred partners (cities and organisations interested in potentially working with AI4Cities solutions after the project has ended). On the second day in Paris the suppliers also got the opportunity to pitch their projects at the VivaTechnology fair, one of the biggest conferences for tech companies and startups, held yearly in France’s capital city.
The Ai4Cities Buyers Group selected seven suppliers in Phase 3 of the Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project, 4 in the Energy Lot, and 3 in the Mobility Lot. These suppliers will now pilot their protoypes in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Greater Paris, Stavanger and Tallinn, aiming to test if their solutions can indeed help reduce CO2 emissions in energy and mobility. The six cities and regions participating in Ai4Cities all have ambitious goals to become carbon neutral soon, and hope that the solutions developed during the past two years can help them reach those goals.
The 3 solutions selected in the Mobility Lot are Avenue, IX3 and MPAT Tool. Avenue, developed by the consortium of Nommon and Populus, is an AI-powered decision support tool that allows cities to measure and monitor the reduction of the carbon footprint derived from different shared mobility regulatory frameworks and policy strategies. It responds to the pressing need of city leaders and policymakers for a data-driven solution that can help them take measurable and up-to-date decisions related to the implementation of smart mobility systems from a climate change mitigation perspective.
IX3, developed by MarshallAi and Kradient, is an auxiliary optimising system for traffic light management, which simply reduces unnecessary stopping and waiting in red lights. Reducing the amount of stopping and re-accelerating a vehicle in traffic has a surprisingly large impact on emissions. Tests and piloting over earlier AI4Cities phases have proven that city-wide adoption of the IX3-system has a 4-8% reduction impact on traffic related emissions.
Finally, in the Mobility Lot, we find Vianova and Rebel’s MPAT Tool, an engine to optimize the CO2 emission-reduction potential of city mobility policies, beginning with shared micro-mobility. By understanding the geographies where a trip on an electric-powered shared bicycle, scooter, or moped is most likely to create an emissions saving the tool is able to make recommendations for areas to implement new policies (ex, subsidies on rides, or removals of fleet caps).
The four solutions selected in the Energy Lot are BEE, C-in.City, SPIKE and Holoni. The BEE consortium (consisting of Eeneman Oy, Unetiq GmbH and the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki) has developed a solution, that not only controls the building in an optimal way and helps to save emissions, but also uses buildings as a storage capability in the energy grid by using energy in times with a high availability of renewables. The BEE System integrates into the buildings management system (BMS), where it gathers data about the energy consumption, as well as indoor air quality data. The central data storage combines this data with third party data sources, like energy grid data and weather data.
C-in.City also brings together the forces of three different companies (Nexqt, Kayrros and La Javaness) to develop a new generation of GHG information system. The solution monitors and manages all urban emissions (housing, commercial, public institutions, transportation, industries, power production) at 3 actionable scales (city, district, building/street) that helps city managers, citizens, NGOs and businesses to better understand local emissions, take individual and collective action, and implement transparent and science-based impact monitoring.
Enerbrain’s SPIKE is an all-in-one, cloud-based software/hardware platform supporting data exchange with proprietary IoT-enabled devices and communication with other IoT devices/platforms, knowledge extraction for situation-aware user interaction and engagement, building performance assessments and dedicated energy management services capable of innovative and effective optimization of energy efficiency and flexibility in commercial, service and residential buildings.
Last but not least, HOLONI enables municipalities, local sustainable brands and energy retailers to assess the true potential of city solar, exchange local green energy and, at the same time, reinvent their community and commercial relationships to prosumers towards collective sustainable impact. Holoni is a European digital cleantech startup being shaped through AI4Cities It builds AI, Blockchain and IoT solutions at the crossroads of clean energy, fintech and smart cities. Through the project AI4Cities, Alpha Ventura, an independent Norwegian venture studio, is incubating Holoni as a new venture and develops its solution with the support of Energinet, the Danish Transmission System Operator.
The AI4Cities consortium is very excited to see how the pilots in the cities will go. On the AI4Cities website, some of the first results, outcomes and insights will (hopefully!) soon be published. AI4Cities has been funded through the EU Horizon 2020 program. 4,6 million euro had been made available for the entire PCP process. The seven suppliers in Phase 3 will share 1,45 million euro.