WG 1 - SyC Smart Cities/WG 1

IEC 60050-831:2025 gives the terms and definitions used in smart cities and smart city systems, as well as general terms pertaining to specific applications and associated technologies. This terminology is consistent with the terminology developed in the other specialized parts of the IEV. It has the status of a horizontal standard in accordance with IEC Guide 108.

IEC SRD 63520:2024, which is a Systems Reference Deliverable (SRD), provides the concept system of energy challenges in smart cities, using the methodology framework and development processes in IEC SRD 63235.
This document is applicable to development and improvement of the terms and concepts relevant to energy challenges in smart cities.
As global climate change and energy scarcity become increasingly prominent, it is important that cities and stakeholders proactively address energy challenges to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. According to the IEC White Paper Coping with the Energy Challenge – The IEC's role from 2010 to 2030, cities are facing the following major energy challenges: stabilizing climate impact from fossil fuel use; meeting the energy demands of a growing urban population; bringing electricity to citizens without access; ensuring stable and secure energy access for all cities.
Cities are very complex "system of systems", including power grid (energy), industry, buildings, transport, water, waste and other domains, each of which plays an important role. Various domains play an important role in coping with urban energy challenges. On the one hand, not only is it important for the power grid domain to be transformed, but also for industry, buildings, transport and other domains to take proactive measures. Therefore, it is essential for stakeholders in different domains to reach a consensus on energy challenges (including but not limited to the intension, solutions, visions, etc.), which is conducive to improving the pertinency, systematization and effectiveness of the city's response to energy challenges. On the other hand, from the perspective of urban governance, it is not the most effective for each domain to cope with energy challenges independently, and the comprehensive governance capacity of cities to cope with energy challenges can be significantly improved through cross-domain collaboration, interoperability and integration.
Semantic interoperability is proposed by the IEC White Paper Semantic Interoperability: challenges in the digital transformation age. Research on semantic interoperability is being carried out or planned in the future in the domains of city, power grid (energy), industry, buildings, transport, etc. For example, in the domain of city, IEC SRD 63476-1 provides a gap analysis of smart city ontology; in the domain of power grid (energy), IEC SRD 63417:–[1] provides guidance and planning for the development of smart energy ontologies. Domain-based ontologies have been developed for semantic interoperability in a specific domain, but there is a lack of cross-domain semantic interoperability research. IEC SRD 63417:– includes the following recommendation: "Start a joint work with IEC SyC Smart Cities and IEC SyC Smart Energy on cross domain ontologies".
From the perspective of urban governance, focusing on cross-domain semantic interoperability and at the same time considering the diversity of technology application in rural and remote areas, this document builds a concept system for energy challenges in smart cities, covering core concepts such as intension, stakeholders, solutions and visions of energy challenges. As semantic interoperability research is being carried out or planned in power grid (energy), industry, buildings, transport and other domains, SyC Smart Cities will not be involved in semantic interoperability within these domains. The concept system of this document contains the core concepts of the city domain and the core concepts of cross-domain. The core concepts relevant to energy challenges in other domains, such as power grid (energy), industry, buildings, transport, etc., are developed for semantic interoperability within each domain and fall outside the scope of this document. The purpose of this document includes, but is not limited to:
fostering the coordination of perspectives on energy challenges among stakeholders in different domains of city,

IEC SRD 63476-1:2024 provides a gap analysis on ontology relevant standards for smart city systems to be used as a base document for mapping, developing and maintaining a set of ontology standards for smart city systems.
Ontology is becoming a key subject in the world of big data, AI, IoT, and smart city system standards. The following benefits of ontology are recognized as important with respect to interoperability, connectivity, traceability of digital content, particularly machine readability, executability and interpretability of digital content for decision making and actions.
- Increase interoperability across domains.
- Enable machine-readable code for computational reasoning and decision making.
- Create semantic linkages between data, information and knowledge systems.
- Build accessible APIs and semantic linkages between web-based data objects.
- Link data domains with shared concepts or canonical data models.
- Connect shared data concepts and definitions between domains.
However, ontology has a variety of definitions in different international standards. How to understand different meanings of ontology and select the right definition for the right stakeholders’ concerns for the right purposes is a big challenge for effective integration of business, data, information, knowledge and decision making, across disciplines, domains, systems, platforms and applications in smart cites. Moreover, how to deal with the grand challenges of interoperability of many and various ontologies to satisfy the demands from artificial intelligence and big data analytics are gaps to be filled in the area of smart city systems. How to develop digital content that is machine readable, executable and interpretable, working in the system without human effort for a smart city system are emerging needs to be studied. There are significant demands for better communication, coordination, cooperation, collaboration and connectivity of existing ontology standards to smart cities practical sectors. This document aims:
• to identify existing ontology standards from different Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) and to provide best practice examples and considerations of ontology standards development and maintenance for smart city systems;
• to identify gaps in existing ontology standards for smart city systems and the opportunities and challenges in ontology standards development taking into account multi-dimensional and muti-domain stakeholders’ concerns city wide, and to provide recommendations for ontology standards development and maintenance to enable integration, interoperability, efficiency and effectiveness of smart city systems.

IEC SRD 63235:2021 provides a holistic system of systems approach to provide views, methodology framework, principles, processes, rules, and evaluation criteria for smart city system concepts building. While it does not specify the definitions of a smart city system, it provides a methodology based on system approaches for coordination, cooperation and connectivity of the terminology sources including IEC, ISO and ITU. The methodology fosters a multi-dimensional system of systems view on smart city systems across dimensions, domains and layers along the lifecycle of a smart city system, scenarios and use cases, supporting the sustainable development of smart city system arrangements, activities and artefacts, convergence of people, process and productivity globally.