News about Smart cities

At the end of 2013, the largest water companies in Scandinavia joined forces to solve problems that arise during repair works and re-joining of water pipes that can cause leaks and accidents as a result. Pre-commercial procurement offered a simple way to get two solutions successfully developed and tested in one year time. Benefits for the procurers: faster, cheaper and reduced supplier lock-in. Benefits for the companies: solutions have been succesfully deployed and commercialised worldwide.

For the first time, the European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a project to invest in very high capacity broadband networks in six Bavarian municipalities already supplied with 30 Mbps connectivity. “It was important to the Commission that the support should lead to a ‘step change’ in connectivity - a substantial improvement in the bandwidths available after the expansion - but also that private investment should not be prevented or devalued”, explains Albert Füracker, Bavarian State Minister of Finance and Regional Identity.

The Smart Villages concept is about improving economic performance and quality of life in rural areas, potentially via digital and other technologies. Smart village inhabitants gain access to knowledge, markets, social and cultural services, technologies and infrastructure that are usually only accessible to urban residents. In this video, Mario Milouchev, Director of rural development programmes 1 and pre-accession assistance in the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development, explains the opportunities for rural areas, and highlights key EU projects connected to Smart Villages.

Climate change, a growing world population and urbanisation pose new challenges in water management. A quarter of all treated water in Europe is lost due to leakages alone. In some Member States it is 50% of fresh water. Water scarcity will be a growing challenge not only in the south of Europe. To address these challenges, the European Commission is offering a Horizon prize with a cash reward of € 2 000 000. The winner is the Fenix Hub solution.

The European Commission has set up an informal group of experts: the Single Platform for open road testing and pre-deployment of cooperative, connected, automated and autonomous mobility (CCAM).

Trieste (IT) and Bilbao (ES) are inviting all potentially interested bidders to submit offers for their pre-commercial procurement about life-cycle sustainable solutions for poluted site decontamination (POSIDON). Other procurers cooperating in this project are Spaque (BE), Vitoria Gasteiz (ES) and Baja do Tejo (PT). The deadline for submitting offers is 1 April 2019.

Three projects chosen to set up trial 5G networks along cross-border corridors, which will be used to help connected and automated mobility become a reality in Europe, will be formally presented on 5 December at the ICT 2018 event in Vienna.

Battery technologies are set to play a key role in Europe's energy strategy for reducing our CO2 emissions and mitigating human impact on climate change. And digital technologies have a major role to play in developing the next generation of safe, sustainable batteries. Read the full blog post by Roberto Viola, Director General of DG CONNECT at the European Commission.

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom call on cybersecurity has just closed. 49 project proposals have been submitted by transport and energy companies, ICT firms, ministries and national organisations from 19 EU Member States. The applicants are proposing an overall investment of 28 million euros to improve their operational capabilities in cybersecurity, of which 18.3 million euros have been requested to be co-financed by the European Union. The EU budget dedicated for this call was 13 million euros.

Following an open selection process, the Commission has appointed 23 experts to a new Expert Group on Business-to-Government Data Sharing. The group is composed of independent experts with a high level of expertise in the field, covering a broad range of areas of interest and sectors.