Mahmoud Ahmad
DURING my recent visit to Japan, which was organized by the Toyota Motor Company, I was impressed by many things, but most importantly their innovativeness and dedication. Everything is impressive in Japan when it comes to the way of life, ethics at work, values, discipline, the unending wheel of innovation and the human ethos. I carried back with me fond memories and also the fervent hope that some of the things that I saw in Japan would be implemented one day in my country.
One of the sites I was taken around during the tour was the Toyota Ecoful Town, in Nagoya. I was told that the Toyota Ecoful Town is the nation’s first area that integrates next generation environmental technology, suggests secure, active and attractive Low Carbon Society.
As I was touring the city, a thought came to my mind, and I wondered when would we see something similar like this ecoful town, even on a neighborhood level. As far as I know, we do not have something like this town in Japan, not in the major cities at least. This town is the future because it teaches its residents on how to manage and consume energy in a smart way.
This city relies on the energy generated from the sun through solar panels that are installed on top of the homes and commercial buildings. The harnessing of solar energy is planned and executed in such a way that a town lives and breathes on clean energy.
It is really impressive on how a home operates using this clean form of energy. We visited an eco house and learned after a tour of the inside of the home that it was controlled by Home Energy Management System that aims at distributing energy generated from sun throughout the house. The harnessed energy is used for the home’s lighting and air-conditioning and even for charging the electrical car in the garage.
If there was shortage of power inside the house, then the system will redistribute the excess energy from the car to power the house. In case the car and the house was low on power, then the house owner would buy energy from the main company. It seems that the whole operating system is well defined such that the town planners have set up solutions for every simple issue that could crop up.
The other system that runs the town is called the Energy Data Management System, which controls distribution of energy on a city level to homes, commercial buildings, trains and schools. This system collects data of energy, analyzes levels of consumption and is ready with reserves to counter forecasted weather. The power is distributed based on supply and demand. The system is so smart that it alerts residence, if the next day was sunny, not to buy energy but to wait until the next day to collect energy from solar panels.
While listening to the presentation on how this city works and on seeing first hand the home’s functioning, I thought wistfully when are we going to see something similar like this in our cities? Sadly when it comes to the use of power, we have a good record in wasting it, all because of ignorance.
Our consumption of power is increasing annually. If we look at any family, we will find that they are wasting power by leaving the lights and air-conditioning on even when they are not in the room or when they leave the house. Some families are away from the house for many hours while their home’s lights are on. Such wasteful actions just add extra burden on the electricity power plants. As a result we see power cuts that blackout neighborhoods for hours in the heat of the sun.
I do not see any iota of awareness in people on rationing the use of power. Despite the many campaigns against wasting power, people’s callous attitude in powering on in their merry ways regardless shows that these campaigns are falling on deaf ears. The only way to hit back at people who are wasting energy is by increasing its cost, but that will harm low middle income and poor families.
If we look at our country, we are rich in the main resource when it comes to solar power — we are blessed by sunny weather throughout the year. I do not know why are we not taking advantage of it fully. I have seen that there are departments relying on solar power here, then I fail to understand why can't we fully unitize this system and install a similar model in our cities. We can educate our people on the importance of this clean form of energy when it comes to home level. Most of our skies are sunny and generating and harnessing solar power could be enough for a family for the whole day.
I wish our officials could visit this city to have an idea of how to build a smart city by encouraging green living. The Toyota ecoful town shows nothing is impossible. Maybe it would be definitely difficult and sometimes even impossible to install this system in every house in an already existing major city, but it is not too late to share this knowledge on newly built neighborhoods or emerging cities.
A model clean city would enable diversification in our power strategy, while also enabling in lowering our global carbon footprint in this growing environment-friendly world. Most importantly, it would enable us to provide an example for all to learn. It is necessary to teach our children at school and urge families to teach their children on the importance of conserving power. If we succeeded on that level, then most of our problems would be solved.
— The writer can be reached at [email protected] Twitter: @anajeddawi_eng
