How 5G plays an Important Role in Reducing Carbon Emissions

This week, The Scotland 5G Centre and CeeD co-hosted an event on How Data Connectivity Underpins Visible, Verifiable and Valuable Environmental Monitoring.

The event, which took place at S5GConnect Forth Valley, our hub based within Forth Valley College’s Alloa Campus, brought together academics, businesses and local authorities to explore a collective approach to reducing carbon emissions.

With the rising cost of energy consumption and with carbon emissions fast becoming one of the world’s most pressing challenges, it’s important to re-evaluate energy usage and come up with a strategy to change our collective behaviours to save money and resources.

Building on CeeD’s peripheral Wastemap® project with Topolytics to make business waste Visible, Verifiable and Valuable, turning data into actionable insights you can view in real-time, the event proposed how connectivity can play a key role in supporting businesses to achieve their individual goals and to work towards Scotland’s ambitious climate targets for 2030 and 2050.

Tom Marchbanks, S5GConnect Forth Valley’s Business Engagement Manager highlighted the opportunities within the region to lead on this step change with the Forth Valley area hosting over 4,000 businesses including Scotland’s largest individual container port at Grangemouth which handles 9 million tonnes of cargo each year.

Referencing the opportunities especially within factories and large workplaces like distilleries, 5G and advanced connectivity can completely transform production lines, optimising and autotomising day-day tasks. For example, stock-taking in a factory can be an arduous process of lifting barrels and containers whereas with a private 5G network, this process can be safer and more efficient with drones scanning QR codes and collecting and logging precious data in real-time.

Rebecca Pankhurst, Manager of Scotland’s International Environment Centre (SIEC), highlighted how these innovations can be applied to agriculture with Vertical Farming and controlled-environment agriculture, a technology-based approach towards food production, providing protection from the outdoor elements and maintaining optimal growing conditions throughout the development of the crops. SIEC aims to drive the creation of a net zero regional economy and stand as a global exemplar of leadership in responding to the climate emergency.

Tony Ianniello, Project Lead at CeeD, discussed ‘imagineering’ – the implementation of creative ideas in a practical form highlighting as an example the 1962 television show ‘The Jetsons’.

The television show introduces the idea of a number of gadgets and devices which are in development or prevalent in today’s society like smart watches, drones, walking escalators, video calls and flying cars.

Following the presentations, our partners at the University of Glasgow’s Communication, Sensing and Imaging (CSI) team illustrated the importance of timely data in the decision-making process using their Persuasive Energy Conscious Network (PECN) dashboard.

In the live demonstration over the hub’s private 5G network, the team showed how the PECN can be used to monitor occupancy of a building and energy consumption through 5G-enabled LoRa technology. LoRa tags placed on seats in the building show whether a seat is occupied with this data being recorded in real-time allowing companies to understand energy consumptions patterns. Also measured, is light levels determining whether artificial light is required or whether the natural lighting is enough.

Read more about the University of Glasgow’s PECN here.

Find out more about The Scotland 5G Centre and our innovation hubs here: https://scotland5gcentre.org/