In the Middle of Nowhere, Panasonic Builds a Smart City

When you think of Panasonic, y'all might think dwelling electronics, but the Japan-based company, which turns 100 this year, can also exist found on planes via seat-dorsum entertainment and in cars via infotainment systems and batteries; 51 percent of the Tesla Gigafactory is dedicated to producing Panasonic-branded batteries, as well.

But the company's biggest play is called CityNow, a bid to become the go-to partner for cities that are set up for a serious futuristic upgrade.

PCMag was in Denver recently, which happens to exist Panasonic's get-go CityNow rollout in the US. We met Jarrett Wendt, EVP of Panasonic Enterprise Solutions, at the company's new edifice, a green edifice that produces more energy than it consumes. It's also in the middle of nowhere: 400 acres of a city sector yet to be built, dotted with cranes, demarcated with developers' billboards, only one stop in from Denver Airdrome.

"I was tasked to find out what translates from our success with the get-go Sustainable Smart Boondocks in Fujisawa, Japan," Wendt told PCMag. "That was an 8.v-year build process and is complete with renewable energy systems providing a five-day resilience for off-filigree power, EV charging stations, the latest security systems and IoT-enabled homes and businesses throughout.

"The entire ecosystem delivers a reduction of 70 percentage in carbon dioxide, with a render of 30 percent free energy back to the filigree, and a 25 percentage increase in homeownership value to appointment, proving the point that building light-green isn't necessarily a greenbacks burn, but is highly incentivized for buyers," he said.

Although Denver is the first full CityNow rollout for Wendt'southward team, they were initially tasked by the Atlanta Braves to reimagine what a microcity—a live sports stadium and surrounding businesses—could get.

"Stadium owners are pivoting towards total 24/seven life/work/play environments," Wendt explained. "Another of our projects was designing and implementing the interactive kiosks, solar energy power, signage and transportation management for AEG'due south L.A. Alive, with multiple large LED video boards, including a massive 7,840-square-foot custom-built mesh LED board that provides full-motion video bright plenty to run into even in direct sunlight."

Panasonic in Denver

Now it'south full steam alee on Denver, which is virtually 2 years into the decade-long projection.

"Since early 2022, when we started on Denver CityNow, we've vetted xi technology suppliers, adult an open API, established a carbon-neutral district, got approval from the public utility and installed the get-go microgrid, with solar panels on Denver Airport property, in partnership with Xcel Energy, which can ability this area for 72 hours in the consequence of a natural, or manmade, disaster.

"We've installed LED street lighting, as part of a Smart Streets initiative, including public safety cameras, ecology sensing, parking management, interactive kiosks and customs-wide Wi-Fi," Wendt continued. "We're testing Argonne's Array sensors, aslope many other innovations, and last, but not least, we're implementing the largest DOT connected vehicle contract in the U.s. to the tune of $72 one thousand thousand."

Panasonic CityNow

To demo this, Wendt took us into the control room, full of screens displaying alive cams on urban center highways and associated real-time information feeds, and showed u.s.a. how the smart mobility solutions platform for connected highways and vehicles are paving the mode to autonomous vehicles.

In spring 2022, Panasonic will roll out an autonomous shuttle connecting the 61st and Pena Station light rail station to omnibus routes on Tower Road in partnership with French company Easymile. But Panasonic provided a sneak peek on Dec. four, when the shuttle made its inaugural ride to Pena Station.

Why Denver? Considering, as Wendt explained, his squad was pleasantly surprised at the lack of bureaucratic holdups. Agencies in Colorado—across free energy and utilities, transport, housing, big business—were ready to become.

"At Panasonic, nosotros're not political, nosotros just desire to get things washed," said Wendt. "And so when the governor of Colorado, the mayor and all the stakeholders here in Denver, said: 'This expanse could be your 'living lab' and become the US version of your success in Japan,' we said: 'We're listening.' Because, we know, if you can't get all those stakeholders in alignment, our ability to be constructive deteriorates significantly."

To survive economically through the adjacent few decades, cities need to get green, strip out legacy tech, and install the latest in IoT infrastructure, not merely to save costs and ensure sustainability for the future, merely too to win the reputation as a forwards-thinking place, to concenter the right businesses, workforce, and residential population. However, it's near incommunicable to manage a city-wide projection, on the scale that Panasonic proposes, through piecemeal public procurement projects to refit LED street lights or install a new traffic system.

In fact, if a city cannot ensure that all the correct decision makers tin can non simply sit in the same room with the sort of city in-fighting that unremarkably goes on, just agree—then Panasonic tin can go elsewhere to prove its CityNow model. One wonders how many city boardrooms Wendt has done this presentation in, merely to motility on when information technology became clear how daunting the task would be.