To optimize energy and utility cost management, Sidewalk 6. Governance Labs intended to dynamically combine electrical and thermal energy management capabilities. Customers would haveIn 2017, Waterfront Toronto was looking for proposals to been billed from a single utility. This approach contrasted develop a “globally significant community” that could showcase with the separation of gas and electric services in Toronto and advanced technologies, sustainable practices, and innovative recognized that thermal energy could become a significant business models to demonstrate solutions geared toward power source (Sidewalk Labs, 2017b: 334-339). bringing about climate-positive urban development. The proposed schedulers model could have played a critical Meanwhile, Sidewalk Labs, seeing Toronto as a place that could role in allocating the cost of domestic hot water, heating, be well suited to its ideas, decided to respond to the RfP issued and cooling to customers. For example, in summer, “a hot by Waterfront Toronto. Six months later, Waterfront Toronto, shower might effectively operate using heat energy from the Information Technology Services - University of Toronto (ITS heat removed by air conditioning” (Sidewalk Labs, 2017b: 339). Innovation), and Funding Partners31selected Sidewalk Labs’s However, in winter, a hot shower might contribute to creating a proposal, and the Sidewalk Toronto project was launched in peak-period heat demand and be charged for according to its October 2017 (Sidewalk Labs, 2017, MIDP, vol.3: 21). Sidewalk Labs real-time cost. According to Sidewalk Labs, “The intent of such had the exclusive right to develop its plans at its own expense. pricing is to create transparency around the true cost of energy generation and delivery” (Ibid., 2017b: 339). “The Plan Development Agreement between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto established a planning roadmap for Sidewalk Labs planned to “issue a request for proposals completion of the MIDP [Master Innovation and Development to design and develop (or co-develop) the thermal grid and Plan]” (Sidewalk Labs, 2017, MIDP, vol.3: 21 & 114-119); the anticipates responses from leaders in the field, such as plan was subject to the approval of Waterfront Toronto. Sidewalk Enwave28 and Creative Energy,29or an established utility Labs’s ambitions in developing the Waterfront had to match the in Toronto with a growing geothermal business, such as objectives identified in Waterfront Toronto’s RfP, which were Enbridge” (Sidewalk Labs, 2017b: 339).30 later articulated in the Plan Development Agreement (PDA) developed by Sidewalk Labs. The plan was presented as an 5.6 Converting organic waste into clean energy opportunity for Toronto and had been designed to address fundamental urban challenges. When organic waste is placed in a landfill, it decomposes to produce methane emissions, which have a more significant impact on the climate than CO emissions do. However, if food2 waste is separated from other waste at the moment when it is produced, it can be turned into biogas, a clean energy source, by using bacteria to break it down. Food waste can itself be used as a renewable fuel, and the dehydrated material left behind can be used to make nutrient-rich compost. This idea, applied at the IDEA District’s full scale, with sufficient food waste to Source: Unsplash generate a return on investment (ROI) through conversion into fuel, could have become a real source of energy. The resulting 6.1 Information on local government decision making biogas would have been captured and exported to the natural gas grid of the surrounding neighborhoods. With an estimated The Master Innovation and Development Plan developed by 45.149 tons per year of source-separated organics disposed of, Sidewalk Labs included three volumes: one for the planning the bacteria digestion process could have provided clean energy concepts and operational systems, one for an analysis of urban to the IDEA District (Sidewalk Labs, 2017). innovation, and one about its partnership with Toronto. Those documents were made fully accessible online to allow the public to understand what was planned for Toronto’s smart city. (28) https://www.enwave.net/ (accessed on 8 May 2020). (29) https://creative.energy/about (accessed on 8 May 2020). (30) https://www.enbridge.com/ (accessed on 8 May 2020). (31) https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/nbe/portal/waterfront/Home/waterfronthome/newsroom/newsarchive/news/2017/october/ statement+on+quayside+innovation+and+funding+partner+request+for+proposals (accessed on 8 May 2020). 184 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021