Now that I am back to the US, I just want to summarize what I experienced in Japan. It is about a 10-hour flight to Japan, but the distance between the two countries in power consumption is much greater. As I was leaving Japan for home, one of the nuclear reactors in the Osaka area was halted because of technical difficulties. In that area, 45% of the power is nuclear. The halt triggered a power conservation advisory within the Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) area, which serves Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Nara. The advisory stops short of making power reduction mandatory but asks everyone to reduce power consumption by 10%.

TEPCO, which serves Tokyo and Yokohama and is the biggest utility in Japan, has been telling everyone to conserve power, but recently it made an interesting comment. One of their spokesmen said that power consumption in the TEPCO area is well under control, in spite of the unusually hot summer. But he cautioned that power conservation should be continued because TEPCO needs to send power to KEPCO, which may run out of power this summer. Some people did some calculations on the power supply by adding up the available thermal, hydro, and nuclear power. The sum is well beyond the estimated demands. Moreover, TEPCO and other utilities are providing less capacity, even though they have the ability to generate more power, and appear to be claiming that nuclear power is necessary to meet power demands in Japan.

There are a lot of discussions going on regarding what needs to be done to the energy policy. The radical and emotional calls to completely get rid of nuclear power have died down somewhat. However, antinuclear sentiment is still pretty high. The gradual departure from nuclear power is inevitable, but many people do not realize that renewable energies cannot immediately replace nuclear power. Until energy storage technologies are capable of greater capacity, renewable energies cannot be used in the mainstream. Energy storage technologies come in several different forms, such as pressurized air, pumped hydro, and batteries. Both pressurized air and pumped hydro require specific geographic conditions and may not be available in many places. On the contrary, battery technologies are making some progress. Batteries may be placed in some strategic places in the power grid, such as at generation sites, substations, and consumer premises (including EV's battery). See here and here for the actual battery use for storage.

Once different types of batteries are placed (the large capacity type at generation sites, medium capacity at substations, and smaller capacity at consumer premises), it would be necessary to use information and communication technologies to balance and optimize their use, smoothing out power demand and supply.

The Japanese people tend to trust their government and utilities, but some have started to doubt the statements coming from them. Many people are suffering unnecessarily from the power shortage.

My trip to Japan is coming to a close soon. In my two weeks here, I have noticed something a dramatic difference between American and Japanese reactions to a disaster that might impact the foundations of a nation.

The power shortage is becoming a critical problem, spreading from the Tokyo and Tohoku regions to the entire nation. People here do not seem to be getting to the root of the problem but are concentrating on power conservation. Everyone seems to comply with the law (in the Tokyo and Tohoku regions) and the advisory (in other regions) without question. Businesses invent new ways to save power, and develop new products that save and conserve power consumption. A few people have questioned whether the halted nuclear reactors really have caused a power shortage. Some claim that using all available power sources, including dormant thermal power plants, could provide enough power without any nuclear plants. Most people do not validate such claims but instead go with power conservation.

TV and other media keep broadcasting the household power consumption ratio. It is roughly 60% AC and 20% lighting. Because of that, many households turn down or completely shut down AC in the 94°F weather. Older generations tend to comply with the power conservation laws or advisory more, and many of them (fivefold more this year than in an average year) are sent to the hospital with heat stroke.

What would Americans do if the same thing happened in the US? I think we would do the same for the nation if we were convinced that the government’s claim were true. But before jumping onto the conservation bandwagon, we would investigate the claim and, if not convinced, demand information and data so we could think for ourselves. If convinced, Americans would unite under the flag. If we decide the government is not telling the truth, we would rise up and show our disapproval by demonstrating, or whatever it takes. This is what’s missing with Japanese people.

I want to point out that the Japanese government is in disarray. The prime minister expressed his resignation in early June (everyone but the prime minister thought he declared his resignation) yet keeps introducing new policies, contradicting what his cabinet members have promised local governments. For example, one of his cabinet ministers asked a local government to restart one of the halted nuclear reactors, and the local government agreed to do so. Right after that, the prime minister denied the start of the reactor by introducing yet another test (a stress test) that imitates the one being run in Europe. The minister lost face, and the local government now refuses to restart the reactor.

The problem is that there is no clear definition of such a stress test. The stress test is a simulation with various conditions, such as shaking and tsunami-grade pressure. But the test could be manipulated easily by those who run it, and it will be run and verified by the government organizations that lost the nation’s confidence by mismanaging the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

To resolve the difference in the conditions for restarting reactors, the prime minister talked with his cabinet and declared yet another condition. The new plan consists of two steps. The minister in charge of electricity and industry thinks the reactor could restart with the first step, but the prime minister and others require both steps to be cleared. The local governments hosting nuclear power plants are confused. So are most people in Japan.

Four months after the major quake, more than 50,000 people are still housed in school gymnasiums, 70% of the debris has not been taken care of, evacuees of the Fukushima nuclear reactor accidents have no clear information about when they can return to their homes, and 80% of donations are stuck in the pipeline and not reaching the victims. Yet, the prime minister does not resolve those problems but produces new policies to prolong his life as prime minister. His approval rate is a mere 15%, but there are no citizen demonstrations or major public voicing of complaints or demands for his resignation. The foreign media praise the calm reactions of the Japanese people, but this is ridiculous, even though I was born and brought up in Japan and am supposed to know what it’s like.

I just wish the Japanese people would wake up and do something to help themselves. With the damage from the quake, less power consumption in sympathy with the victims, the power shortage, and radiation fears within and outside the country, Japan runs the risk of hitting a second disaster as big as the quake. I only wish this would change soon for Japan.

Since the March 11 earthquake, Japan, especially the eastern part of the country, is upside down. Before the quake, when I asked about the energy policy in Tokyo and Osaka, I was almost ridiculed, as if I were talking about some alien country. I was told the power generation and delivery infrastructure in Japan is great and the balancing of the sources of energy would prevent any power shortage problem. TEPCO published data on the average power outage per minute per year, compared with the US and Europe. Japan’s average was only a few minutes per year, but the average in the US was 60 minutes or more.

That has changed completely after the quake. When I was in Tokyo in May, power conservation efforts and campaigns were everywhere, even though power demands are the lowest in April and May. The situation was completely different in Osaka. People in Osaka, of course, know what’s happening in Tokyo and other cities in the eastern part of Japan. But I did not see any power conservation campaign or slogan for conservation.

Fast-forward. It is July, when power conservation is expected to increase. I leaving for Japan now. The new law to cut power consumption by 15% will take effect July 1. The law will be enforced on businesses but is only advice and a plea to individual residential consumers. Violators will be fined by the hour. It is already very hot in Japan—it hit 95°F in the past few days. A lot of people were sent to the hospital, and there were some deaths, because of heatstroke. The number of people who were sent to the hospital is several times more than in an average year. This is partly because of excessive power conservation. The government has been campaigning to conserve power. Some people took that very seriously and turned off their air conditioners. Japanese tend to conform to a government advisory. I suppose more deaths will be reported over this summer.

I, an import from Japan, will observe and experience this uncomfortable situation at first hand and will report it in my future blogs. I plan to visit Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. Both Nagoya and Osaka are under advisory to conserve power because of their stalled nuclear power plants there. So everywhere I go, I will experience the hell. I usually avoid going to Japan in July and August because of the harsh weather. In May, a hotel I stayed in did not allow me to control the AC temperature, and I suspect they will do that again, in spite of the hot weather.

This is happening in Japan, where they laughed at my concern about the availability of energy and power only six months ago. I hope the same thing does not happen in the US, especially in earthquake-prone California. I conclude this blog with a word from someone in Japan: "We could only appreciate what we lost when we lost it.” Are we ready for a potential energy and power shortage?

The Japanese government has mandated that every business of any size must cut power use by 15% during the summer months to cope with a likely power shortage then. Residential consumers are not required but encouraged to do so.

The Japan Data Center Council (JDCC) is a consortium of data center operators. The membership includes major data centers of major companies like Hitachi, Fujitsu, and NEC. JDCC has been campaigning with the Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry (METI) to make data centers exempt from this mandatory cutback. As far as I know, they have not received any word from METI yet. JDCC has been arguing that the nature of data center operation makes it impossible for their member companies to cut back power use by 15%.

Now a security company called Kabu Dot Com Securities (KDCS) has announced that they have cut power use at their data center by 15%. KDCS accomplished this by replacing old servers with more energy efficient ones. KDCS had been using the HP database server Superdome for customer information, but now they are using the HP ProLiant DL785 G6. The accounting database servers also were HP Superdome, but now they are Superdome 2. This upgrade cut server power consumption by 54.5%. The decrease in server power consumption will also decrease the cooling requirement by 17.7%. Overall, KDCS claims that it will accomplish the 15% power cutback and satisfy the METI mandate to replace old servers (KDCS’s were bought in 2006) with new ones in fall 2011. KDCS moved the server upgrade plan up by several months.

KDCS is not a member of JDCC. I am not sure what impact KDCS’s result will have on JDCC’s argument. Certainly, new servers tend to be more efficient, and replacing old servers with new will reduce power consumption. But it may not be possible for every data center to do something similar. I will ask about this during JDCC’s meeting next week.

I had a chance to talk with an expert in building management systems (BMS) in Tokyo. Who dominates that market in Japan? In the HVAC segment, Yamatake takes 80% of the share and Johnson Controls takes 10%. The rest of that segment is shared by Mitsubishi, NEC, Panasonic, and Toshiba, each with a small percentage.

Until about 10 years ago, the network protocols in BMS were proprietary systems by Yamatake and Johnson Controls. No one dared to use any other protocols. Your HVAC vendor’s control system became your control system. Mori Building Co. http://www.mori.co.jp/en/ is a big real estate and building company that has built many large, famous buildings in Japan and elsewhere. About 10 years ago, the company developed a building called Venus Fort and specifically requested LonWorks be used for the network protocol. This opened up the protocol field to LonWorks. NTT Data, one of the biggest system integrators, supported LonWorks as well. It was an epoch-making event to use a standard open system to connect and control equipment in a building.

As time went by, BACnet gained a foothold in the marketplace, and LonWorks was integrated into BACnet as a lower layer. IP was incorporated as BACnet/IP. Other protocols were converted by a system like Niagara by Tridium.

Other trends include the type and placement of HVAC systems. HVAC was a big centralized system before, but these days a smaller unit is installed for each room or group of rooms. Daikin and Mitsubishi have a large share of this market.

Wireless technologies, such as ZigBee, are not very popular yet. The Japanese tend to collect data more frequently than Americans do. ZigBee sometimes drops data packets and therefore is not very popular.

As for demand and response (D/R), Japanese power companies do not implement mandatory power shredding or shaving. When a large client exceeds its upper limit, which was contracted at a certain rate, it must pay at the next level for the rest of the year. The next level is usually much more. Thus, the client is very keen on its total power use and tries to keep consumption under the initially agreed-upon upper limit. The power company does not shut down the power as its US counterpart might do in the face of a power shortage.