Smart city - a sustainable solution for enhancing energy efficiency and climate change mitigation in Saudi Arabia

Smart cities are considered as the future of urban habitation to accommodate increased population with better utilisation including power, water, and transportation. Yet, the benefits of smart cities are hard to measure especially as financial benefits and as climate change mitigation. This study investigates the potential of implementation of four smart cities in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The information and communications technology for the proposed cities is selected considering licensing and operation regulations, size of data, power consumption, and infrastructure cost. An appropriate methodology was developed to estimate the savings in power, water, and transportation sectors. A climate change mitigation analysis was conducted to estimate the co-benefits of the proposed smart cities focusing on electricity and water use reduction. Based on the analysis of the whole project cycle, the estimated greenhouse gas emission reduction will vary between 1.82 million tons and 6.06 million tons and the financial sensitivity analysis revealed that the range of savings will vary between $75,701,012 and $170,281,940.