Digital twins and using lost energy. What are French companies offering to Uzbekistan?

Digital twins and utilizing lost energy: what are French companies offering to Uzbekistan?

If their proposals are chosen, French companies are ready to expand their activities in Uzbekistan, said the Special Envoy of the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France for Transport and Sustainable Urban Development.

During his visit to Uzbekistan, the Special Envoy held meetings at the Administration of the President of Uzbekistan, the Ministries of Transport, Energy, Economy and Finance, Investments, Industry and Trade, as well as the Tourism Committee and the New Tashkent Directorate.

In an interview with Gazeta, Gérard Wolf spoke about various approaches to urban development and the innovations French companies are offering for the development of Uzbekistan's cities.

— There are many challenges in the field of urban development. Our task was to try to answer the questions of representatives of Uzbekistan's ministries, city administrations, and individuals responsible for urban management, and to see how we can assist.

I have two roles. On the state level, I handle issues of sustainable cities and transport. This encompasses a wide range of tasks related to urban development. Additionally, I work with the private sector: I lead the working group on sustainable cities at the French MEDEF association.

Here, together with the ambassador and his team, we are trying to offer Uzbekistan the best French solutions in the field of sustainable cities. Then, the Uzbek side will need to choose what it wishes to use, after which companies can propose specific technical solutions. But first, it is necessary to clearly understand how you want to organize your cities.

One of the main topics is New Tashkent: we discussed how we can help address the challenges facing the new city.

— Focusing on just a single project is not the goal of our delegation. We want to see on a broader scale how we can help find suitable solutions for Tashkent or the country as a whole.

We, as the French, do not claim to be the best. But we have a comprehensive vision of urbanization issues and experience working in various countries.

We have companies with a long history: an important part of the French expertise where I previously worked is tied to the reconstruction of the country after World War II. The companies that worked at the national level back then later became major international players.

During the meetings, together with the companies, we discussed how to offer the most suitable solutions. After all, what is suitable for Uzbekistan does not necessarily have to be the same as in other parts of Asia or Latin America. The proposal must fit the country's existing conditions and development model.

— Wherever a city may be in the world, it consists of a mosaic of four main services. For a city to function, it must have water, energy, transport, and the waste problem must be solved.

There is a fifth element — healthcare, hospitals are needed, but that is a slightly different type of service.

In each of the four main areas, we can offer solutions — not necessarily uniform ones, but solutions adapted to a specific country. And in all these areas, it is about decarbonization (reducing carbon emissions).

Transport with lower carbon emissions is an obvious example. However, this also applies to energy, water supply, and waste processing. We either reduce emissions during production, including energy production, or we implement principles of a circular economy.

Energy recovery from waste is currently quite widespread, and progress needs to be made in this direction. A similar approach applies to using a circular economy in water supply systems.

Another area is the use of "waste energy" (excess energy), which is energy generated during the operation of equipment that typically dissipates and goes unused. For example, data center servers generate a huge amount of heat. It can be captured and used to heat buildings or warm water.

Take the Aquatic Center (Centre Aquatique Olympique) built for the Olympic Games in Paris. It is a huge building. It needs to be heated, cooled, and the water in the pools must be purified — all of this requires a lot of energy.

This center uses heat from an adjacent data center and the building's own server room, as well as solar panels and other solutions. Nearly 90 percent of its energy needs are covered by renewable sources and heat recovery.

This is one of the examples we are offering here. Of course, it does not have to be specifically for an aquatic sports center: such approaches can be applied in various situations.

We are ready to share our experience with pleasure. Everything is open: Uzbek ministers can come and see, and we will explain how it works.

At the same time, we add two elements to the technical solution that are not always present in the proposals of others.

The first is training people. Many companies might say: "Here is our best solution. It costs this much." We do not limit ourselves to that. We say: "Here is our solution, and we will train your specialists to use it."

If you are given a car, but you do not know how to drive, you cannot go anywhere. It is the same here. If you buy high-tech equipment for an aquatic sports center and do not know how to manage it, you will face serious problems.

Therefore, practical training in operation is an integral part of our offer.

The second element is innovation. We try to incorporate the maximum volume of innovations related to decarbonization into our offers, as well as innovations regarding how to build the facility in the best possible way.

That is precisely why we include digital twins in infrastructure projects. In our view, today this is one of the conditions for the successful long-term operation of a facility — whether it is a tram, a building, or other infrastructure that needs to be used.

Take a new building in New Tashkent. With the help of a digital twin, it is possible to assess in advance how its orientation will affect energy consumption. If the building faces north or south, the figures will differ due to sun, wind, and other factors. The model allows choosing the position where the need for heating and cooling will be minimal.

This also applies to transport systems — tram, metro, or urban cable car. Using a digital twin, the most suitable route can be selected: for example, for a cable car, a route with less wind exposure, or for a tram, the most suitable street.

Today, this is a mandatory part of our offers. That is not always the case in the proposals of other countries.

— In our opinion, a city and a country cannot rely on just a single solution. Our approach to urban problems always consists of combining different solutions and creating transfer hubs where one can switch from one mode of transport to another.

At the same time, it cannot be said that the solution for Tashkent is a tram and that the same thing will suit Samarkand or any other city. A city's geography and history may not permit the implementation of a specific mode of transport.

When you are building a new city like New Tashkent, you can organize the space in advance, taking into account that you want to have a tram or another transport system. If the city is already built, you have to adapt to existing conditions.

In Samarkand, a mosque cannot be moved to another place just for a tram to pass through. But when you are building New Tashkent from scratch, you have different options. That is a different task.

We adapt to the requests of local authorities to offer the most suitable solution. And it always implies a combination of different modes of transport.

If a person gets on a bus and then wants to transfer to a cable car or metro, everything must be coordinated and interconnected. Otherwise, the system will not work. That is precisely our approach to organizing transport.

— I would speak about doing business in Uzbekistan not as a problem, but as a series of solutions.

The meetings we conducted over the two days showed that our interlocutors are striving to accelerate the implementation of the best available solutions. They want to get this as quickly as possible.

At the same time, they appreciate that we provide for training specialists. If we talk about electric power, waste processing, or, for example, waste-to-energy, these are not easy tasks from a technical and scientific point of view. Highly trained people are needed to ensure optimal efficiency.

Therefore, we always come with both a technical solution and an explanation of how we will train your specialists.

During these two days, we spoke about available solutions and discussed how best to combine different approaches to a single task. There is no single answer — a combination of solutions is needed.

We also felt that the officials we met are very interested in long-term results. This means not only training people, but also paying attention to technical losses. They occur both in power grids and in water supply systems. To put it simply, there are two options. You can install water pipes, connect them, and leave it at that. Or you can simultaneously install a sensor system that allows detecting where losses occur. If they arise, the system gives a signal, and measures can be taken to limit them as much as possible.

That is exactly how we work: we offer various solutions, provide for training specialists, and use technologies that allow maintaining efficiency and reducing the loss of energy and other resources.

— Are they ready to invest more in this country? The answer is clear: yes, undoubtedly, if we are chosen.

However, the meetings over these two days, in particular the meeting in New Tashkent with the Deputy Prime Minister and other officials, demonstrated that there is an interest in French solutions.

We know that representatives of other countries are also working here. This is a completely natural situation: Uzbekistan does not intend to depend on just one state.

There is another aspect we have not touched upon yet — cooperation with universities and young specialists.

At the meeting in New Tashkent, I noted that a huge university center is being created here. We are ready to accept engineering students. We consider it very important to cooperate with young engineers and technical students, both in France and in the countries where we work.

To better prepare young people for tomorrow, we are ready to cooperate on urban projects and develop ties between universities. This is not about a one-off project — we are trying to prepare for the future together. It is in our DNA that we cannot imagine building, restoring, or helping build cities without the participation of the local young generation. After all, in ten years, these very people will be living there. This is part of the French vision.

— First of all, I was the second person at the French electric power company EDF. Together with Chinese partners, we built nuclear power plants, so I am not someone who would call Chinese proposals nonsense. That does not correspond to reality.

Secondly: competition is competition. Sometimes a proposal is cheaper, and sometimes the price is the same.

It all depends on what exactly you are looking for and what is included in the offer. You can buy something, after which you are told: "Now use it." Or you can buy it along with training for the people who will work with it.

Chinese companies, like others, are also ready to train specialists. But sometimes they say: "Of course, if you train your own people yourselves, it will turn out cheaper."

I am not saying this is bad. It is your choice. It is simply a matter of a different kind of proposal.

We certainly respect our Chinese, Indian, and other colleagues, provided that compliance rules are observed. On our part, we try to offer the best available technologies.

We were genuinely surprised by the growth rate of Uzbekistan's population — this means that movement needs to be faster.

Any country can offer something. But let us say you have 100 metro cars. If no one knows how to operate them, you are not ready to launch yet.

Sometimes our proposal may not be the cheapest. But the cheapest does not mean the most effective. We also work with companies from other countries, including Indian companies — even within France itself. Our task is to explain exactly what we are offering.

Together with the ambassador and his team, we felt this: the scale of the task facing Uzbekistan is so vast that here, as they say in France, one cannot choose "cheese or dessert?" Both cheese and dessert are needed — the participation of everyone is necessary. Otherwise, it will be very difficult.