Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 03 | Page 60

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology “ESPECIALLY IN LARGE SITES, SUCH AS INDUSTRIAL ZONES, OFFICE PARKS, SHOPPING MALLS, AIRPORTS OR SEAPORTS, IOT CAN HELP REDUCE THE COST OF ENERGY, SPATIAL MANAGEMENT AND BUILDING MAINTENANCE BY UP TO 30%.” At a glance… drive total growth, representing 24% of the IoT market for smart cities. IoT deployment in commercial buildings will continue to grow at a rapid pace over the next few years, and is on pace to reach just over 1 billion in 2018. “Incentives into the deployment of IoT in commercial real estate will fuel its development,” said Tratz-Ryan. “The UK’s building information modelling (BIM) mandate, for example, requires that all public sector construction commencing in 2016 complies with BIM (level 2).” BIM utilises data models coming from various information sources including IoT, which will be used by commercial real estate in the future. In smart homes, the consumer IoT applications that are fuelling growth are smart TVs, smart set-top boxes, smart bulbs and various home automation tools such as smart thermostats, home security systems and kitchen appliances. “The growing maturity of smart home platforms through an ecosystem of home appliances, infotainment and home sensors will mean that smart home investments overtake those of commercial buildings in 2018,” said Tratz-Ryan. Smart homes will represent 21% of total IoT use in smart cities in 2016, and will record the highest increase over the next five years. “Device and wireless standards will be embedded in more devices. Homes will move from being interconnected to information- and smartenabled — an integrated services environment that will provide value to the home and the individual ambience,” added Tratz-Ryan. (For the full article, please visit www.intelligentcio.com/me) 60 INTELLIGENTCIO Amazon to build massive wind farm to power services Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced it will build and operate a 100-megawatt (MW) wind farm in the US that will power its current and future cloud service data centres. The project, called the Amazon Wind Farm US Central, is expected to generate about 320,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind power per year beginning in May 2017. Wind-powered energy, the second-largest category of renewable electricity generation, is expected to grow on average by 2.4% every year to become the largest power contributor by 2038. Amazon has launched a number of wind farm projects and other renewable energy initiatives over the past two years as it moves toward a goal of 100% renewable energy use. In January 2015, Amazon announced a renewable project with the Amazon Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge) in Indiana, US, which is expected to generate 500,000MWh of wind power annually. Also this year, Amazon unveiled a pilot of Tesla’s energy storage batteries that are designed to help bridge the gap between intermittent production, from sources like wind, and a data centre’s constant power demand. www.intelligentcio.com