Smart and just urban transitions: opportunities for tropical cities in Latin America (1/3)
By: Urban Ai
Tags: Latin America, Smart Cities, Urban Planning, Energy Transition, Smart Grid

Smart and just urban transitions: opportunities for tropical cities in Latin America (1/3) Urban AI Follow Aug 5 · 5 min read

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Ariela Valverde, Contributor and Advisor at Urban AI, is a Costa Rican Architect and Urban Planner with a master’s degree in Urban Planning and Policy Design held at Politecnico di Milano. Most recently, she collaborated in a Transport & Mobility consulting firm in Milan and co-founded Urbanalytica, an organization of data-driven strategies for sustainable communities.

Alejandro Tristán is a professional in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on industrial systems and renewable energy. He has a Masters in Management and Engineering of Environment and Energy from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden and is currently concluding his doctoral studies at the University of Stuttgart on the topic of a “Methodology for the systematic identification, evaluation and management of operation-friendly industrial energy flexibility“

Urban areas around the Globe need to transition into smarter and more sustainable development schemes. Within this process, their geographic location plays a crucial role by predisposing a set of determinant challenges. These, however, can be transformed into opportunities for creating smart, culture-sensible, and resilient pathways as long as “one size fits all” solutions are avoided.

This article -the first in a series on this topic- focuses on tropical cities in the Latin American region. For this, a brief enlisting of the myriad of their shared social, economic, and environmental challenges is developed, alongside the potential opportunities that these challenges may offer for pursuing smart and just urban transitions.

From a macro-level perspective, tropical cities in Latin America are characterized by high levels of socioeconomic inequality, unplanned urbanization patterns, and vulnerability to the effects of climate change. These challenges have historical roots, since the region’s economy has been largely based on primary sector industries, dominated by oligarchies and transnational conglomerates that have significantly obstructed social mobility and development through time. Rural migration to urban areas due to concentration of labor and economic opportunities, resulted in a disorganized and unplanned urban expansion. Moreover, the lack of a long-term urban planning vision has placed cities in the region at the forefront of the current climate and environmental crisis. Besides tragic events like flooding, landslides, and earthquakes, Latin American urban areas experience inadequate access to basic resources and services that are necessary in the midst of emergencies.

As in many cases, addressing these challenges serves not only to address immediate urban threats, but also as an opportunity for the region to make a significant leapfrog. The first opportunity relies in the supply energy sector, through the transition into smart and decentralized energy grids. Decentralized energy grids are small-scale, modular electrical generation and storage technologies that provide electric capacity close from where it is demanded. Smart grids are electrical networks that use digital communication technology to detect and react to local changes in usage. Currently, in most Latin American cities, electrical coverage is high, but there is a large share of untapped potential while supply disruptions are frequent. Additionally, final consumer prices are high, and energy related CO2 emissions keep rising. Smart grids allow a more efficient transmission of electricity, quicker supply restoration, reduced operating costs, and most importantly, an effective and resilient integration of volatile renewable energy sources (i.e., solar and wind).

Image 01: Smart Grid systems.

Overall, decentralized smart energy grids can become great tools for supporting just and sustainable energy transitions in cities throughout the region. These multiple small-scale power plants can be installed at shorter distances from consumers, facilitating a reduction of electricity prices and energy related CO2 emissions, energy supply in remote and informal communities, and the creation of direct clean energy jobs. Moreover, the lower emission-free electricity costs can motivate investment in this secondary sector industry and therefore reduce socioeconomic inequalities.

The second opportunity involves the electrification of the energy demand. In order to implement a decentralized electrical smart grid -that is technically and economically efficient and based on renewable sources- requires the substitution of non-sustainable energy carriers (i.e., fossil fuels) with renewable sources, particularly in the mobility and transport sector. Electrifying the transportation system offers numerous benefits, including a greater diversity in the fuel portfolio, a reduced dependence on fossil-based sources, lowered total costs of ownership, and an increased price stability. Additionally, it fosters national energy resilience and independence, while improving environmental conditions, especially air quality. Given that investments to improve the mobility and transportation sector are necessary in most cities throughout the region, committing to these sustainable transitions is a great opportunity to take a leap regarding the main current challenges experienced in urban areas around the world.

Image 02: Expected structural changes in the energy system made possible by the increased use of digital tools. Published in: Energy Atlas 2018 Figures and Facts about Renewables in Europe, 2018.

In future entries, we’ll be discussing in more detail the integration of these smart and sustainable transition opportunities into the region’s urban planning arena. Our main aim is to make visible that adopting a long-term smart vision is not only crucial for addressing the current climate crisis but also for tackling the economic and environmental lag that keeps affecting the region.

By Ariela Valverde and Alejandro Tristán

References

Libertun, N. (2021). Cuatro Desafíos que Nuestras Ciudades Pueden Superar [Blog]. Retrieved from https://blogs.iadb.org/ciudades-sostenibles/es/cuatro-desafios-que-nuestras-ciudades-pueden-superar/

Vera, F., & Sordi, J. (2020). Diseño ecológico: estrategias de adaptación de los barrios populares al cambio climático [Ebook]. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Retrieved from https://publications.iadb.org/publications/spanish/document/Dise%C3%B1o-ecologico-Estrategias-para-la-ciudad-vulnerable-adaptando-las-areas-precarias-de-america-latina-y-el-caribe-al-cambio-climatico.pdf

Bataille, C. et al. (2020). Net — zero deep decarbonization pathways in Latin America: challenges and opportunities [Ebook]. Inter — American Development Bank Climate Change Division . Retrieved from https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Net-zero-Deep-Decarbonization-Pathways-in-Latin-America-Challenges-and-Opportunities.pdf

GEMdev: Grounded Energy Modelling for equitable urban planning development in the global South. Retrieved from https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FT007605%2F1

Heinrich Boell Foundation in cooperation with the Green European Foundation, European Renewable Energies Federation and Le Monde Diplomatique. (2018). Energy Atlas 2018 Figures and Facts about Renewables in Europe [Ebook]. Brussels, Belgium. Retrieved from https://eu.boell.org/en/2018/04/24/energy-atlas-2018-figures-and-facts-about-renewables-europe?dimension1=archive