Soon enough, New York City might be a city specialized in solar power generation and monitoring. IBM has recently teamed up with CUNY Ventures, a CUNY Economic Development Corporation entity, to develop its smart cities technology with a focus on urban solar market analysis and sustainability.

According to IBM, “the goal of this effort is to nourish solar adoption by developing the capability to analyze and understand key solar market indicators that can make solar system development more cost competitive. Using IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities as the backbone, this analytics-based approach will help New York City monitor and analyze solar production and capacity through a virtual control room that will provide a dashboard view of key indicators. ”

The IBM/CUNY initiative is part of global investment in ‘smart cities’ technology, and will keep New York competitive in this new market.

Such action could provide resilience for the city’s power supply, since each year the city’s population increases. In fact, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), electricity consumption will grow from now to 2030 at a rate of 0.8% per year, meaning that “electric power consumption, and the accompanying infrastructure to produce and deliver electricity, will be about 43% greater in 2030 than it is today.”

According to Craig Hayman, General Manager of IBM Industry Solutions, “Intelligent automation of key services such as energy, water, transportation and public safety is the solution to help meet these challenges. Developing leadership in sustainable resources, as New York is doing with solar energy, serves as a model for meeting citizens’ needs while achieving the operational goals of the city.”

For detailed information, go to : http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/37973.wss

Photo: IBM, Solarfeeds