Smart Cities

Welcome To Smart Japan

Europe, the US and China dominate smart city developments, Singapore and South Korea are grabbing some headlines, while India floods news feeds with its own smart city ambitions. Quietly a giant sleeps, a tech giant with the capacity for great smartness is slowly but surely developing its cities in a bid to leap frog all other countries and become the world’s leading smart nation. Welcome to Smart Japan. Away from the noise around terms like the “Internet of Things”, the Asia-Pacific nation put together their ‘Smart Japan ICT Strategy’. The mission of this strategy is both clear and ambitious, “To be the most active country in the world - Realizing Japan’s economic growth and contribution to international society through innovation by ICT.” The strategy’s vision is for Japan to build “a knowledge and information-based nation by 2020”. If you think that sounds too ambitious, consider Japan’s birth as an industrialized nation. In the matter of […]

Stay ahead of the pack

with the latest independent smart building research and thought leadership.

Have an account? Login

Subscribe Now for just $200 per year per user (just $17 USD per month) for Access to Quality Independent Smart Building Research & Analysis!

What Exactly Do you Get?

  • Access to Website Articles and Notes. Unlimited Access to the Library of over 1,700 Articles Spanning 10 Years.
  • 10% discount on ALL Memoori Research reports for Subscribers! So if you only buy ONE report you will get your subscription fee back!
  • Industry-leading Analysis Every Week, Direct to your Inbox.
  • AND Cancel at any time
Subscribe Now

Europe, the US and China dominate smart city developments, Singapore and South Korea are grabbing some headlines, while India floods news feeds with its own smart city ambitions.

Quietly a giant sleeps, a tech giant with the capacity for great smartness is slowly but surely developing its cities in a bid to leap frog all other countries and become the world’s leading smart nation. Welcome to Smart Japan.

Away from the noise around terms like the “Internet of Things”, the Asia-Pacific nation put together their ‘Smart Japan ICT Strategy’. The mission of this strategy is both clear and ambitious, “To be the most active country in the world - Realizing Japan’s economic growth and contribution to international society through innovation by ICT.”

The strategy’s vision is for Japan to build “a knowledge and information-based nation by 2020”. If you think that sounds too ambitious, consider Japan’s birth as an industrialized nation. In the matter of 40 years, Japan moved from a feudal, Samurai-led system to a global industrialized economy under the inspired leadership of Emperor Meiji. Once isolated, Japan sent its best and brightest around the world to learn then return and shape the nation’s future.

The transition to a smart nation is not nearly as extreme; Japan is, of course, the home of many tech-based, multi-national conglomerates. Its society is forward thinking and tech savvy, and it has the ambition to be a world leader in technology development. However, the path to a smart Japan is not without its challenges, not least turning vast existing cities into smart ones.

To achieve this, Japan’s municipal governments turned to private sector’s business savvy and technology expertise to fill knowledge gaps for “smart” city initiatives. For each smart city project, consortiums were created to match local governments with companies, with the emphasis on retrofitting existing infrastructure rather than building new cities in the already crowded island nation.

“There were four big projects funded by the Japanese government, located in Yokohama, Toyota, Keihanna, and Kitakyushu. These projects were implemented over 2011-2014. Relevant stakeholders, including local communities and residents were brought together and technologies like demand-response and dynamic pricing systems were tested and demonstrated,” explained Dr Masaru Yarime, Project Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Innovation Governance (STIG), Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo.

In Yokohama, development was epitomized by comprehensive introduction of renewable energy and electric vehicles over the wide-area metropolis. Home energy management systems (HEMS) were installed in 4000 households. In Toyota, home of the car manufacturer and wider conglomerate, there was focus on local production for local consumption and 67 households in separate housing were decked with solar panels, household fuel cells and storage batteries.

In Keihanna, part of the Kansai area, the project involved the installation of HEMS in 700 houses as well as consulting with businesses about saving energy. While in Kitakyushu, large steel and metal companies supplied power over a designated area, with dynamic pricing system for 180 households.

Demand reduction (DR) efforts found varying degrees of success in Yokohama City, depending on how the DR was implemented. Reductions in electricity demand ranged from 4.2-7.2% with the highest reductions seen among those who were given incentives. The large amount of data collected by the HEMS also provided the opportunity to learn a household’s lifestyle in order to balance power conservation with comfort.

The Toyota City portion of the project, entitled, “Smart Mobility & Energy Life in Toyota City” demonstrated that energy savings could be achieved with a DC control system that utilized as much of the rooftop PV power as possible, combining battery storage with DR-type strategies that utilized equipment at optimal times. Results were sufficiently encouraging that predictions suggest that rooftop PV should achieve grid parity before 2020.

More recently, a new EU-Japan collaboration looks to take smart cities to the next level with a cloud-based open data platform. The research project “City Platform-as-a-Service – integrated and open” or CPaaS.io for short is an EU-funded initiative and partnership between government and private sector players in Japan and Europe, with a key roles being played by Bern University’s E-Government Institute and Japan’s YRP Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory.

The collaboration aims to develop cloud-based urban data infrastructure that will be used as a key foundation that all smart cities around the world can be built on. The experimental platform will work toward linking such technologies as big data, Internet of Things and cloud computing with linked open data and open government data. This will allow cities and private firms to develop new applications and services for the public and businesses.

“The platform – operated by or on behalf of a city – thus forms the basis for an open digitized society, making the city more attractive for its citizens and new businesses, and also helping the city in streamlining and improving its own governmental processes and services,” according to the project website.

Much like during the Meiji Restoration era, Japan has quietly, confidently and quickly moved from an outsider in a global technological movement to an influential global leader. With major test beds already providing constructive results and an ambitious strategy in place, we should expect to see Smart Japan leading us into a Smart World in the coming years.

[contact-form-7 id="3204" title="memoori-newsletter"]

Most Popular Articles

Honeywell Acquisition of Carrier’s Global Access Business
Smart Buildings

Honeywell Strategy Update: Building Automation Business Acquires Carrier’s Global Access Solutions

On 10th October 2023, Honeywell announced plans to realign its business segments around three megatrends: automation, the future of aviation, and energy transition. This Research Note focuses on what this means for the smart buildings market. The US conglomerate’s perspective for organic and inorganic growth was further highlighted on a 1st December webcast, together with […]

Access Control MultiFactor Authentication
Security

The Multifactor Future of Access Control Authentication

In recent decades, the access control market has seen the introduction of numerous different forms of authentication to enhance security and the user experience. Our latest research does not expect this fragmented technology landscape to be solved by a single form of authentication, however. Instead we expect to see the continued rise of multifactor authentication […]

Complimentary Article AI + Memoori = AIM!
Smart Buildings

AI + Memoori = AIM!

Here is the recording and presentation from our live stream, discussing AIM, an artificial intelligence chatbot service we have developed to simplify the way our clients access & engage with smart building market analysis. We walk through how AIM was Developed, potential use cases & why we think it is a tool that will dramatically […]

Subscribe to the Newsletter & get all our Articles & Research Delivered Straight to your Inbox.

Please enter a valid email

Please enter your name

Please enter company name

By signing up you agree to our privacy policy