Rise In Government and Stakeholder Funding For Developing Smart Cities.
Due to increased urbanization, cities now need creative solutions to long-term problems like managing garbage, traffic flow, meeting energy-efficiency requirements, preventing security breaches, and overseeing municipal surveillance. Governments in developing economies are concentrating on building smart cities with substantial expenditure from the public and private sectors in order to address the long-term problems brought on by increased urbanization. The increased fear of terrorism puts public places with high concentrations of people, both domestically and internationally, like jails, government buildings, and schools, at risk of security breaches.
Governments everywhere are concentrating on financing building automation projects in smart cities by investing in equipment for video surveillance, access control, and fire safety, particularly in poor countries.
For the benefit of the ecology in the area, the US government is actively researching into climate change and green emissions. Therefore, as part of President Biden's investing in America agenda and environmental justice goals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched two Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for $20 billion across two grant competitions in July 2023 under the historic $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, an inflation reduction act program.
When combined, these competitive grant opportunities should help American families, particularly those in low-income and disadvantaged communities, reduce their energy costs while reducing harmful pollution to combat climate change and protect public health.
For instance, in March 2023, U.S. Transportation Secretary announced $94 million in grant awards for the 59 projects across 33 states through the first round of funding for the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program. This budget is expected to be used in building and maintenance of smart infrastructure across the US.
In October 2021, DOE announced that they have invested $61 Million for smart buildings that accelerate renewable energy adoption and grid resilience in which it aims to connect via ten “connected communities” that would equip more than 7,000 buildings with smart controls, sensors, and analytics to reduce energy use, costs, and emissions.