# Implementing Smart City Technologies to Inspire Change in Consumer Energy Behaviour
## 6 Discussion and Conclusions  
Smart city development in Europe is driven by EU ambition to become climate neutral continent by 2050, supported by digital transformation agenda and captured directly or indirectly in various policy and legislative acts. Meanwhile, in LAC countries it is strongly linked to the existence of governmental commitment to reach United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In either case political will and incentives play a pivotal role in triggering investments in smart city technologies. Improving consumer behaviour is critical to further energy transition and efficiency gains. However, a number of countries, for objective reasons, do not have precise consumption measurements, real-time meter data access and anti-fraud detection, which would allow the value chain (real estate developers, building management companies, grid operators, utilities and end users) to avoid unnecessary technical losses, to optimize the balancing process between generation and consumption, to increase reliability of the forecasting and enable other applications. Moreover, accurate and constant data availability can raise user awareness, support positive changes in consumer behaviour and uncover potential of increasing energy savings, thus leading to reduced environmental impact. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**City**} & \multirow{2}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} **Area,** \\ **km\({}^{2}\)** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{2}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} **Number of** \\ **People in** \\ **Thousands** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{2}{*}{**Weather**} & \multirow{2}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} **Number of** \\ **Antennas** \\ **3G** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{2}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} **Number of** \\ **Antennas** \\ **3G** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{2}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} **Number of** \\ **Users** \\ **3G**/min** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{2}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} **Number of** \\ **Users** \\ **WiMAX/min** \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{2}{*}{\begin{tabular}{c} **Propagation** \\ **Coverage** \\ **3G** \\ \end{tabular} } \\ \hline Riga & 307 & 679 & \begin{tabular}{c} Humid \\ Continental \\ \end{tabular} & 48 & 18 & 7.2 & 10.8 & 88–90\% & 90–92\% \\ Bucharest & 326 & 1883 & \begin{tabular}{c} Humid \\ Continental \\ \end{tabular} & 30 & 12 & 4.5 & 7.2 & 94–96\% & 96–98\% \\ Florianópolis & 443 & 477 & \begin{tabular}{c} Temperate \\ Maritime \\ \end{tabular} & 38 & 30 & 5.7 & 18.0 & 78–81\% & 80–81\% \\ Santiago & 837 & 6257 & \begin{tabular}{c} Mediterranean \\ Continental \\ \end{tabular} & 74 & 40 & 11.1 & 24.0 & 92–94\% & 82–90\% \\ Concepcion & 221 & 217 & \
\begin{tabular}{c} Oceanic \\ Maritime \\ \end{tabular} & 26 & 13 & 3.9 & 7.8 & 76–78\% & 84–86\% \\ Copiapo & 175 & 151 &
\begin{tabular}{c} Desert \\ \end{tabular} & 26 & 7 & 3.9 & 4.2 & 50–60\% & 70–80\% \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Summary of involved project cities. Thus, the multipurpose interdisciplinary approach described in this paper and developed within the framework of the project allows, in rather limited conditions, for the collection, analysis and modelling of customer behaviour. The development was performed considering user privacy, combining the multiple modern information sources--user consumption surveys (as a gamification tool) and measurements from the installed smart meter. Through the proposed building block methodology, there is scope to explore options for behaviour change, supporting social, technological, ICT and adoption layers. As for the pilot, a full coverage of the electricity use in UPB is planned in the future, for example, with the support from European Structural Funds, aiming to transform UPB campus into a (Smart City) Living Lab. This lab could support future research and demonstration activities on balancing issues, power quality indices (voltage changes, harmonic content etc. ), other informative parameters (e.g., carbon footprint) and in testing energy efficiency initiatives like demand response, contractual binding load curves, etc.