Business trend
A plan to construct the largest environment
city in a 170,000-square-meter land is in progress. This is a so-called smart
city made up mainly of 1,500 apartments complete with commercial facilities and
hospitals. It is based on such IT-based advanced technologies as photovoltaic
generation equipment, a system to control power consumption of each household
and street lighting, and car sharing. Nomura Real Estate Development and
Mitsubishi Corp. will work together on this project. The 170,000-square-land is
an old factory site of Asahi Glass.
Each household will be equipped with the home
energy management system (HEMS) that controls electric usage and warns about
excessive usage. The city is divided into sections, each of which is connected
through information network to manage and optimize power consumption. Each
household will be able to purchase high-voltage power at a lower unit price as
a package deal independently than the unit price it pays for low-voltage power.
A photovoltaic generation system will be adopted to generate power for areas
for community use. Mitsubishi Motors will help the project with the sharing
system of electric vehicles. The East Japan Great Earthquake prompted companies
involved in the energy business to draw plans for more efficient use of energy
and formulate measures for emergency power demand.
