A so-called Smart Grid will aim to ensure a better balance is kept between energy supply and demand within the city’s central business district, where many of Japan’s biggest businesses are headquartered.
It is estimated that offices in Tokyo account for roughly 35 per cent of the city’s overall power consumption and the new system should be able to instantly determine and switch to the most effective or appropriate energy source at a given time. So solar power will be used on sunny days and stored for reuse where possible.
The government plans to conduct an extensive survey of energy use at all the larger offices in Tokyo and to create a system capable of maintaining power supplies even in the face of an unexpected emergency, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper reports.
The question of how best to ensure energy supplies are maintained to offices in Tokyo was brought into sharp focus this year in the wake of a catastrophic tsunami and the subsequent crisis at the Fukushima power plant.
“It’s very important to promote the smart grid system to enhance Tokyo’s disaster-response capabilities,” said Hirohisa Aki, from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial and Science Technology’s Energy Technology Research Institute.
“Tokyo is the national capital, so the repercussions of a power shortage there would be extremely serious.”
The Smart Grid plan will use some of the latest IT technologies and will be designed specifically to improve the supply of energy to office buildings in downtown Tokyo that are above 20 stories and incorporate over 10,000 sq metres of office space.
Editor’s notes: As of July 2023, the INT’L Smart Grid Expo in Tokyo was due to be held September 13 – 15 2023 in Chiba.
In a commitment to Smart Grid implementation, the most important innovations and the latest technologies and equipment in the industry are presented annually at the expo.
In July 2023, it was announced that authorities were planning to release treated radioactive wastewater from the tsunami-destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea “within weeks”.
The announcement by the Japanese government and the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, (TEPCO) was met with both local and global concern.