Energy Technology And Information Technology Converge In Japan's Sustainable City Project

Friday, 03 June 2011

Smart cities use technology to create more sustainable urban developments. Great in theory, but creating a solid business case is challenging because of critical uncertainties about which technology will be adopted by the population. The city of Amsterdam is finding this out through its program of 18 pilots (see Verdantix Defining The Sustainable Urban Development Market). It is in this context that on May 26 2011 Fujisawa City announced a partnership with a consortium of nine firms to redevelop a 19 hectare brownfield site located 50 kilometres from Tokyo.

The $742 million venture will see a vacant Panasonic factory site be turned into Fujisawa Smart Sustainable Town (SST) with the goal of achieving average urban emission reductions of 70% compared to a 1990 baseline. In return for donating the site, Panasonic will be able to pilot its energy services and systems for buildings and cities. The 1,000 household neighbourhood’s smart grid will support electric vehicle infrastructure, solar panels, smart metering for home appliances, and Tokyo Gas’s household-use fuel cell cogeneration system, ’ENE-FARM’. The consortium expects the project to open in 2014 and be fully operational and occupied by 2018. This is Panasonic and Tokyo Gas’s second partnership, following the Yokohama Smart City Project in November 2010. Major partners are Accenture, investment firm Mitsui & Co, developers Mitsui Fudosan and PanaHome, engineering consultant Nihon Sekkei, and investors ORIX and Sumitomo Trust & Banking.

The firms have made a smart move at a time where Tokyo’s nuclear crisis casts doubt on Japan’s energy infrastructure roadmap, positioning their products as supporting efficiency power distribution for Asia’s growing population. Such pilot projects are risky investments, witness SmartGridCity in Colorado which saw its budget balloon from $15m in 2008 to $45m by August 2010. Fujisawa SST is mitigating these risks by deploying already commercialised technologies and selecting a well connected site located on Tokyo’s outskirts. It seems to be working: it has already attracted the support of Japan’s two largest banks and developers.

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