My name is Akira Katayanagi and I'm an electrical engineer in the International Projects Group. With the recent earthquake, tsunami, the nuclear disaster at Fukushima and the impact this has had on energy supplies, it is more important than ever for everyone in Japan to make efforts at energy saving.
If everybody in Tokyo (population about 13,000,000) switched off lighting in unused rooms (with a 60W bulb), we would be able save about 780MW per hour. To give you an idea of how large this figure is, it is about 16 times the equivalent power consumption for 1 professional baseball game held in Tokyo dome, or equivalent to lighting power for a single family for 160 years! It is something we should keep in mind: small scale energy saving measures by individuals lead to large scale energy savings.
1 Goal
It is important to set energy saving targets. The goal for this summer is a reduction of over 15%. This target value, announced by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, is calculated based on analysis of this year’s electrical power demand and supply balance.
Electrical power usage varies. While saving energy is important, we want to save energy while maintaining comfort to avoid any drop in productivity, so it is important to understand the breakdown of energy consumption in order to make effective savings. Lighting, power outlets, air-conditioning, servers, server room air-conditioning etc., we need to analyze what proportion each application accounts for, and it is important to consider energy saving by first focusing on whichever section has the highest consumption.
To raise the energy saving awareness of employees, the energy consumption for each group is measured and announced in the company each week or month, and a comparison of last year’s and this year’s energy consumption helps to add a measure of satisfaction. However there are many companies that say, “energy readings are not being taken at all in any group so it’s difficult to raise monitor”, but recently there is a diverse range of metering equipment available which is comparatively cheap to install. In fact, our company had not been monitoring consumption but this month we managed to set up a hand built monitoring system.
It is easy to take effective measures such as reducing lighting by half and setting the cooling at temperature at 28°C. However, it’s important to remember that simple things like forgetting to switch off lighting and air-conditioning while making efforts like these can still lead to disappointing results. However, this summer we have instituted an “Energy Saving Patrol”. It may sound a little funny and at first I thought, “Hey we’re not a bunch of school children… ”. The patrol simply designates members to check the situation in the office and switch off any unused lighting or air-conditioning. However, this is one of the most basic kinds of energy saving measures.
International Projects Group
http://www.ptmtokyo.co.jp/
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