Accepted Manuscript Integrating GIS databases and ICT applications for the design of energy circulation systems Takuya Togawa, Tsuyoshi Fujita, Liang Dong, Satoshi Ohnishi, Minoru Fujii PII:
S0959-6526(15)00900-2
DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.020
Reference:
JCLP 5826
To appear in:
Journal of Cleaner Production
Received Date: 19 December 2014 Revised Date:
12 June 2015
Accepted Date: 3 July 2015
Please cite this article as: Togawa T, Fujita T, Dong L, Ohnishi S, Fujii M, Integrating GIS databases and ICT applications for the design of energy circulation systems, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.020. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
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Integrating GIS databases and ICT applications for the design of energy circulation systems
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Takuya Togawa1, Tsuyoshi Fujita1, Liang Dong1, Satoshi Ohnishi1, Minoru Fujii1
Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for
Environmental Studies (NIES), 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan Corresponding author:
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Email:
[email protected] Tel: +81-029-850-2184
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Abstract:
Effective and efficient matching of supply and demand of materials and energy with consideration of spatial allocation is essential to realize low-carbon city planning with high material- and energy-use efficiency. Implementing real-time action management can contribute to smart system designs in a long-term plan. Integrated databases will need to be established by using information about regional spatial characteristics, such as land
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use, infrastructure installation, production, and livelihood. Moreover, an appropriate methodology for operating and designing the energy–material circulation system will also be required. Here, we examined the possibility of collecting various types of spatial information on cities and considered the use of existing databases for designing an energy
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circulation system in one region of Japan. We introduced an innovative information network system integrating a regional geographical information system and information
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and communication technology application and evaluated its performance and future outlooks. The proposed system is critical to support better management, reporting, and verification of material and energy network construction.
Keywords:
Big data, ICT, Land use, Renewable energy, Scenario approach, Unutilized energy
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1 Introduction
The Japanese government has released an ambitious roadmap to reach the goal of
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becoming a low-carbon society by 2050. To realize the target, various measures are required to effectively and efficiently make the Japanese economy more climate friendly while at the same time reducing energy consumption. The materials and energy system, including infrastructure renewal and land use, should be included in long-term planning through 2050. Understanding possible scenarios of future technology and information
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management for long-term planning are necessary to achieve the desired goals. Furthermore, more directly inducing appropriate behaviors by city residents should help
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to achieve the goal of low-carbon society. For example, appropriate management of information on unused materials and energy so as to exploit their full potential could substantially improve efficiency. A system for managing resource demand in cities will need to be established to drastically increase renewable energy production, which is influenced strongly by the weather. To achieve these objectives, more detailed city planning and finer controls are necessary. This requires cities and regions to perform like
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living beings, by implementing functions for generating, distributing, analyzing, and providing feedback of information as if these functions acted as a nervous system. Emerging information and communication technology (ICT) and big data techniques effectively support such smart management. Various network-connected information
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devices that can observe and accumulate various kinds of data on cities and regions are already in wide use (Fig. 1). Data examples include public transportation usage history,
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purchase history, and other data stored on integrated circuit cards, as well as action data linked with location information as a result of the popularization of mobile information terminals and the steady use of social network services (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2013). Although these data are not always structured in specific formats, vast amounts of information are being accumulated (Hilbert and Lopez, 2011, 2012a, b). Thus, the amounts of data generated, distributed, and accumulated have been steadily increasing and the information environment for cities is changing rapidly. There are also fundamental data sources for information management. Basic data on cities and regions have already been organized; they have been used for various policy2
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and decision-making purposes in city and regional planning. In particular, infrastructure statistics, such as national censuses, have been periodically organized with detailed spatial resolution by town, street number, or 500-m mesh. In addition, regional
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remote-sensing technology on artificial satellites has advanced and is being used to gather infrastructure data.
Furthermore, the dissemination of embedded systems for portable terminals and various other devices has enhanced the possibility of information distribution to cities and regions via various channels. In other words, not only can the results of analyses based on
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generated, distributed, and accumulated data be used for long-term planning (as is currently the case), but the data can also be used to provide real-time feedback to cities
or element has been expanding.
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and regions. Thus, the possibility of directly controlling the actions of a particular subject
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30 20 10
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0
End of 2007 End of 2008 End of 2009 End of 2010 End of 2011 End of 2012 End of 2013 (n=3,640)
(n=4,515)
(n=4,547) (n=22,271) (n=16,530) (n=20,418) (n＝15,599)
Mobile phones, PHS (including smartphones)
TV sets with an Internet connection
Fixed-line phones
Home game devices with an Internet connection
PCs
Tablet-type terminals
Facsimile machine
Other home appliances with an Internet connection
Smartphones (Reshown)
Figure 1. Spread of information-related devices 3
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Source: (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2013)
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Even though new data collection and information management practices are emerging, there is still a gap in the combination of top-town and bottom-up designs in management systems combining ICT and big data to support urban and regional material–energy networks. Given the changes in the information environment (monitoring, database, and feedback functions) in cities and regions, this study conducted
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a review of the following processes needed to establish an urban/regional planning and management system. The aim of the research was to develop an innovative design of an
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ICT- and GIS-based management system for urban material–energy systems, with a primary focus on the following two areas:
a) We studied the overall conditions related to existing data on cities and regions and examined the possibility of new data acquisition through ICT, and we summarized the flow of information generation, distribution, and accumulation in cities and regions. b) On the basis of practical experience gained in the development of a GIS database
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and an ICT system for an actual region, we laid out conditions of use of these information systems in the design and management of regional energy systems. Hence, we considered the necessary role of GIS databases and ICT systems in the creation of efficient-energy systems.
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The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a brief review of previous research on energy system design. Section 3 analyzes the generation, distribution, and
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accumulation of urban and regional data and the GIS database. In section 4, we present the development and integration scheme for the GIS database. In section 5, we present a regional information management system for material and energy systems with an ICT application combined with a GIS database and illustrate its application in one Japanese pilot project in the Fukushima region. Finally, we discuss the merits of the study in section 6 and offer concluding remarks in section 7.
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2 Review of Previous Studies of Energy System Designs
Low-carbon cities (Feliciano and Prosperi, 2011; Vettorato et al., 2011; Yeo et al.,
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2013) and smart cities (Angelidou, 2014; Turner et al., 2014) have increasingly attracted academic attention. To develop decision-support tools to improve urban planning and policy making, a focus on energy flows and energy networks is critical (Turner et al.,
should be useful (Reiter and Marique, 2012).
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2014; Yeo et al., 2013). In this regard, the integration of ICT technology and GIS systems
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Several recent studies have focused on this issue. For example, industrial symbiosis can be a critical component of a low-carbon city. Grant et al. (2010) presented ICT tools for industrial symbiosis development to support more resource- and energy-efficient systems. Detailed ICT systems designed to enable industrial symbiosis have been
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analyzed by using the 17-ICT-tool inventory. These tools can potentially be applied at the urban scale. Reiter and Marique (2012) proposed an urban level methodology for assessing residential energy used in buildings and transportation and applied GIS tools in
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a case study in Liège, Belgium. The model they developed was applied to model urban building and transportation energy use, considering urban energy consumption, stock
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changes, and the effects of planning policies. Xu and Coors (2012) developed an integrated sustainability assessment approach for urban residential development. The approach considered not only sustainability indicators and housing equilibrium, which were simulated by using System Dynamics (SD) methodology, but also building visualization displayed in 2D density maps in ArcGIS and 3D visualization in CityEngine. They presented a case study of a district of a city in southern Germany. The developed integrated system of GIS, the SD model, and the 3D visualization was able to better 5
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interpret the interaction of the sustainability indicators in the context of residential development.
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Turner et al. (2014) presented a top-down city-scale methodology for characterizing the energy performance of buildings; it was also used in the EU FP7 INDICATE (International Network for a Digital Cultural Heritage e-Infrastructure) project that aimed to create a master-planning tool to facilitate the planning of sustainable and
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energy-efficient smart cities. Several comprehensive reviews about urban energy models
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and practical tools have been published (Connolly et al., 2010; Keirstead et al., 2012; Manfren et al., 2011). Connolly et al. (2010) used 37 tools and classified them into seven indexes: simulation, scenario assessment, equilibrium, top-down, bottom-up, operational optimization, and investment optimization. Most investment optimization tools targeting the energy infrastructure of combined heat and power have macro-level resolution,
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making it difficult to consider spatial relationships. Bottom-up and investment optimization have micro-level resolution detail, but only when applied to planning optimal wind or photovoltaic power systems. We found no reports about practices that
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were integrated with demand-side spatial planning. From a literature review of urban energy models focused on distributed generation systems, Manfren et al. (2011) reported
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a standard process for examining urban energy systems. Even though GIS was also referenced, it was included only in the preliminary phase to identify potential sites suitable for distributed generation. Although some models have optimization functions for infrastructure investment or operation management, the demand-side condition is assumed to be fixed. Keirstead et al. (2012) reviewed 219 recently published papers related to urban energy systems. Papers were classified by cluster analysis into six fields: 6
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technology design, building design, urban climate, systems design and policy assessment, land use, and transportation. The authors concluded that the mainstream of models was
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specialized in each own discipline, and integrating the land-use and transportation fields and the energy field remained a challenge. This review developed an optimization method for infrastructure investment, or operation planning, and reported a practical application, but the analysis of demand-side conditions was not sufficiently developed.
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To date, therefore, no general method for integrating urban energy systems with spatial
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planning exists.
Our review indicated that there have been limited studies of city-scale energy system modeling approaches that integrate ICT approaches with the GIS system, especially as applied to Asian cities. Given these circumstances, our aim here was to present a support system for a city-level energy circulation system design that integrates a GIS database
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and ICT technology applications.
In particular, given the situation in Japan, where advanced information and communication systems are well established, we studied design and management
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processes for a city or regional energy system in an environment in which large quantities of diverse data could be deployed and used in combination with a GIS database to
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support these processes. Our outcomes should be critical to the better reporting and verification of regional low-carbon technologies and the related policy implications in this “big data” era.
3 Generation, Distribution, and Accumulation of City/Region Data and the GIS Database
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Data related to cities and regions are classified by collection method. We examined the organization status for each classification, the characteristics of the survey method used, and the data characteristics. Figure 2 illustrates the overall data management
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scheme. Data have traditionally been collected by using classical methods such as individual surveys, rather than on the basis of actual space, so the data have not necessarily been managed in an integrated manner. As described in the papers reviewed in the previous section (Connolly et al., 2010; Keirstead et al., 2012; Manfren et al., 2011), data have
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been applied to long-term planning for cities and regions as basic information in simulations. However, with future advances in ICT and related technologies, data for
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cities and regions will be collected through a variety of means, including satellites and ICT devices. It will be possible to manage data consistently in GIS databases that associate the data with geographical and other information. Moreover, ICT terminals can be used as interfaces to present analyzed information as feedback to the public. Therefore, by constructing GIS databases based on more comprehensive data sources, it will be possible to support both long-term urban planning polices and short-term actions. As a
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result, we think it will be possible to broaden the scope of regional energy policies.
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Figure 2. Changes in the data environment in cities and regions
3.1 Basic Statistical Data
Various data have been collected (mainly by administrative bodies), and some are
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organized as spatial data used in GIS. Some of the data are shared freely in the National Digital Land Information via the Internet.
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National censuses and other large-scale surveys, such as the censuses of manufacturers and housing statistics, are conducted every 5 to 10 years. Furthermore, some data are organized by detailed spatial units, such as the standard fourth mesh (500-m grid), by town, or by street number. Surveys focusing mainly on activities in large urban areas, such as person trip surveys, are also conducted. These large-scale surveys use survey sheets and are limited to once every few years owing to costs and other issues. The Basic Survey of City Planning, which is based on Article 6 of the City Planning Act and is conducted about once every 5 years, serves as primary information for city 9
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planning. Furthermore, private companies conduct regular map-based surveys on infrastructure, including roads and buildings, at approximately 1-year intervals. Some municipalities manage municipal property taxes by using detailed GIS survey data on
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building usage, age, and other relevant items. The approximate framework of a city or region can be identified by integrating these data. As data that have accumulated over the past decades become available, time-series organization is possible, and advances continue to be made in data organization. However, because the formats used by different municipalities are not always uniform, achieving
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integrated control poses some issues.
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3.2 Remote Sensing by Artificial Satellites, Airplanes, or Other Means It is possible to construct high-definition infrastructure data on landforms and land use by analyzing remote-sensing data obtained from artificial satellites used for global observations. Sensing data for the same point are available about once every few days, and, by polishing the imaged data obtained from remote sensing, identification of land use with detailed resolution (on the order of several meters) can be obtained. For example,
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land-use data based on satellite images for Japan are organized by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan as numerical maps. Time-series observation data have been organized and accumulated since the end of World War II. Studies of the Colona satellite images utilizing data from the LANDSAT artificial satellite began in the early
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1960s and added momentum to the use of data for urban expansion, forest resource management (identification of deforested areas), and other related uses. In the field of
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spatial analysis, the data have been used to analyze periodic changes in landforms, expansion of urban areas, and changes in forests and farmlands, among other uses. Intensive sensing of specific areas by airplanes and unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) allows researchers to obtain pinpoint data at a relatively low cost. However, data completeness is not guaranteed. Observations of ground-surface heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration distributions by using infrared radiation are also available. High-vision satellite videos have also become available recently. These developments have gradually expanded the possibility of real-time and complete monitoring of city activities. 10
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3.3 City Sensing with ICT Recent advancements in ICT, dissemination of sensing devices, and creation of
amounts, of information on the environment.
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networks have enhanced the collection and accumulation of various types, and vast
City areas, in particular, have various devices installed that can be connected to information networks to observe and accumulate action data. However, the data are managed by a company or a service-providing entity, and public access is not available.
regional disparities can become an issue.
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In addition, these monitoring systems are implemented mainly in cities; therefore,
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In addition to conventional ICT, the public has come to gradually accept various forms of social media for sending and collecting information. Because portable information terminals ensure closer links to individuals than do other devices, they are suitable for observing an individual’s daily activities. Many tools are being developed for collecting and controlling relevant data, and the environment for using such tools has been organized.
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However, the use of ICT data poses some issues. The data are not structured and tend to be qualitative in nature. Handling such data is not easy, because they require integration with quantitative data. Also, when considering the dissemination characteristics of digital equipment and devices, individual attributes, such as the age
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groups of the person using it, can be biased. Therefore, mutual complementation of ICT data and qualitative data through integration of infrastructure data is important to ensure
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effective use of these data.
3.4 Summary and Review of the Data Development Status The characteristics of currently available spatial data for cities and regions are
summarized as follows.
Although remote-sensing technologies have advanced to provide spatial infrastructure data of better accuracy and higher frequency, there is a need to develop infrastructure technology to control the data in an integrated manner. Although environments for generating, distributing, and accumulating micro-data 11
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through sensing with ICT have developed rapidly in recent years, to maximize potential, any biased distribution of regional or individual attributes in the data should be overcome and their integration with infrastructure data should be realized. And, overall image of
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database system based on the data development status are shown as Figure 3.
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Figure 3. Image of database system construction and development
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4. Method for Developing and Utilizing the GIS Database
This section describes two data integration schemes: a method for understanding the
current situation and creating a future scenario, and a method for data utilization toward predictive action support. These methods allow us to propose possible directions for developing environments for data observation, distribution, and accumulation in cities. Recent advancements in GIS utilization in the field of city planning have helped nearly 80% of municipalities in Japan to develop geographical spatial data as digital data, and the resulting system is operated to create and review project draft plans and share 12
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information among agencies (Sakata and Teraki, 2009a, b).
4.1 Use in a Long-term Plan
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4.1.1 Visualizing and understanding the current situation in cities and regions Basic information to better understand a region can be obtained with an expression that overlays several different data sources and data form different time points. Figure 4 summarizes one such result by municipality for the energy supply potential, including unused energy, and the energy demand of the civilian sectors in the coastal area from
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Fukushima Prefecture to Miyagi Prefecture in the Tohoku region (Fujita et al., 2013).
In (Fujita et al., 2013), we used a GIS database to find floor areas for different
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building uses by municipality. We estimated energy demand by multiplying these floor areas by energy demand units that were specified from monitoring with ICT. We then quantified energy supply potentials by municipality from spatial distributions of natural energy and heat generation sites in the region. In Japan, basic data on available renewable energy resources by municipality are maintained and can be freely accessed. Generally, data on unused heat energy are not kept, but required environmental burden emissions
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reports from factories were used. Total amounts of unused energy, by factory, were estimated by evaluating energy supply–demand balances on the basis of these data. This exercise allowed us to identify the energy supply–demand balance by municipality. It also clarified the measures to be focused on and introduced by each For
example,
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municipality.
effective
energy-efficiency
measures
for
coastal
municipalities, such as the city of Iwanuma and the town of Shinchi, include the tapping
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of unused industrial heat. On the other hand, the tapping of unused energy is limited in mountainous areas, such as the city of Kakuda and the town of Marumori, where a combination of solar panels and biomass was found to be more effective. In addition, we were able to test different scenarios to predict the effects of cooperation among several municipalities. As described in Figure 4, which shows the effects of cooperation between the town of Shinchi and the city of Soma, cooperation across administrative districts can efficiently harness low-carbon potential beyond the current utilization by individual cities. The main target of energy management is usually to optimize the electricity system, 13
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ignoring the importance of heat energy management, perhaps because the management of heat energy seems more difficult. In fact, almost half of the heat energy is wasted on the demand side. This could be a key area for improving energy efficiency, through the use of
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a precise monitoring system that is already available with the ongoing development and
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popularization of sensing devices.
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Figure 4. Example of information visualization
4.1.2 Use in future planning
The GIS database can be used not only to assess the potential of renewable and
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unused energy utilization on the basis of the visualization of information, but also to evaluate specific measures quantitatively by working with simulation models. Furthermore, examining effects by combining individual measures allows the design and review of future scenarios for the region alongside the measures needed for improvement. An example of an appropriate spatial plan for energy efficiency is described here. It is an example of an evaluation of a concrete policy in the town of Shinchi; unused energy potential is visualized by using the demand–supply balance analysis discussed in the previous section. The example examines suitable future land-use patterns considering 14
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heat loss due to energy used for transportation and infrastructure construction costs (Togawa et al., 2013). The result of the analysis indicates that, from an economic aspect, spatial structure has a significant influence on introducing unused heat energy in energy
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infrastructure design. The left side of Figure 5 shows values (for a 500-m mesh grid) for the cost and CO2 emissions (per unit of heat energy) required to transport unused heat from an industrial district to a demand-side district. We used sets of rules to derive future land-use scenarios from grid data for present-day land use and estimated spatial distributions of future
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energy demand. By overlaying these sets of information, it was possible to evaluate the extent to which the exploitation of unused energy could be promoted in each of these
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representative future scenarios. Thus, by using GIS to combine and analyze common information that was already maintained and publicly available, it was possible to derive regional potential information and specific planning-support information that could be
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used by municipalities or other planning agencies.
Figure 5. Example of a review suggesting possible improvements in a future plan
4.2 Real-time and Predictive Action Support The results of simulations with observed and accumulated data can be used in long-term planning. They can also be used to provide real-time feedback to cities, regions, 15
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and residences via various devices installed in actual space. This allows predictive action support via the use of various data. At the residential level, energy saving has been promoted by visualizing energy
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demand, and demonstration experiments of demand–response providing economic incentives have been launched. Trials of information sharing at the city level have also advanced considerably. An example of this includes traffic information provided to drivers via car navigation systems.
It is important to examine the possibility of exerting control via feedback data
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received at the building level. Recently, the official standard interface called ECONET Lite for Home Energy Management System (HEMS) was established in Japan and was
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incorporated into many home appliances (ECHONET CONSORTIUM, 2015). Standardization of smart meters is a reality today, with Japan being the global leader in this field. The HEMS (ECONET Lite) Interoperability Test Center launched research on interconnected environments and has been developing support kits for newly participating business operators and formulating operational rules for improved safety. Japan’s ECONET provides more services than the U.S.’s SEP2.0 and Europe’s KNX.
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ECONET’s planning documents are shared freely with the public, and it has been expanding its presence in other Asian countries. Moreover, it is currently developing technology for platform construction and will be designing a program for promoting business expansion on the constructed platform.
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ECONET’s current technology was created with the aim of improving living convenience and energy saving by households. To develop and promote the distributed
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systems that are required for comprehensive management of supply and demand, it will be necessary to extend ECONET technology to the regional scale and to study systems for feeding back data obtained through ECONET to regional authorities.
5. Development of a Regional Information System Using ICT
This section explains the construction of a regional information system (community network system) using ICT in the town of Shinchi in Fukushima Prefecture. In Shinchi, a 16
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practical demonstration experiment is ongoing; the experiment uses local residents to examine the roles of information infrastructure, especially in provincial cities and towns. The community network system links the server (a hub server for regional environment
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knowledge), which consolidates tablet terminal and regional information, with energy control systems. In doing so, it not only helps energy conservation in homes and businesses but also promotes the development of social technology by enhancing regional welfare and facilitating smooth automotive traffic. Shinchi is located in the northernmost area of Hamadori in Fukushima Prefecture. It is close to the core cities of Tohoku and is
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approximately 1 h away from Sendai and about 30 min away from Soma. The town also has many industrial bases, such as the Soma Kyodo Power Station and the Soma Central
people.
5.1 Overview of the System
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Industrial Park. It has a total area of 46.3 km2 and a population of approximately 8000
The community network system was designed to create bidirectional information network infrastructure by providing an interface between smart meters and tablet
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terminals installed in major facilities, residences, public facilities, and other structures. It connects network information related to the regional economy, such as information on energy, health, welfare, and traffic, with the regional environment knowledge hub server installed in the town hall (Fig. 6). By utilizing this infrastructure to share combined
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service information related to energy, welfare, and economic activity support, information “linkages” should be further enhanced among the public, town government, non-profit
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organizations, and companies, especially at the stage of reconstruction, when communication tends to be insufficient. However, the system was not designed to allow all of the users unlimited access to any data all the time; in fact, it requires an appropriate setting for the scope of data sharing in consideration of privacy protection. Content was created at the development stage with the cooperation of all people
concerned, to design appropriate processes for increasing the frequency of use of the information system and achieving mutual development.
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5.2 Function of the Community Network System In discussions with representatives from Shinchi, we set out the proposed functions of the system. By using a regional ICT system, the following public services will be
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developed because they were rated as high priority from the perspective of the municipality.
The three major functions of the system currently being developed are as follows. (1) Regional energy action support network
“Visualization” of energy use in each home with a tablet terminal will be used to
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develop a system that promotes power saving. Furthermore, by using the bidirectional telecommunication function, local governments can automatically send messages to
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householders informing them of power saving and the related incentive points earned (monetary gains achieved by the local community through saving power during peak usage hours). On the basis of the experiences in these trials, the bidirectional telecommunication function will be improved so that it can be applied to infrastructure for energy demand–response control.
(2) Reconstruction of aging community support networks
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The network will realize a structure for different municipalities, wherein they will send members of the public regional information pertaining to welfare, nursing care, regional events, and town development for reconstruction. The network will implement a feedback function that will allow users to submit their requests related to regional
preferences.
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services, and it will contribute to the provision of regional services that reflect residents’
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(3) Regional traffic-support network Improvements to public transportation will be promoted by equipping the public
transportation system with GPS and telecommunication functions, including on-demand traffic. The results/information pertaining to traffic services (e.g., location and number of people using a particular mode of transport) will accumulate in the regional environment knowledge hub, which will continue to examine possible improvements to improve public convenience on the basis of the data.
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5.3 Utilization and Development of the Accumulated Information Future utilization of data that are collected and accumulated from the community network system needs to be considered. The information obtained from the community
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network system will provide feedback to each residence through visualization, demand– response, and other methods to reduce environmental loads while improving convenience. The results of analyses based on the data accumulated in the regional environment knowledge hub will be incorporated into the reconstruction plan for town creation and the disaster prevention plan. Specifically, this will help planners to design and operate the
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regional energy network, because a planner can analyze the data pertaining to environmental actions in the region and examine methods for the most effective use of
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heat and wastes from industrial infrastructure in the region. Furthermore, more interactive information control, long-term data accumulation, and wide information sharing among companies should be able to be realized.
In the case of Shinchi, the data are administered by a corporation contracted by the municipality and by our research institute. The collected data are used for long-term town planning, and personal data about members of the public are fed back to them by a
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visualization system. To extend this to the regional level, more advanced information sharing between users will be necessary to make use of the community network system. For example, the procedures for making data available for development of new services have not been established. It will be necessary to promote information sharing only
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within a suitable scope, by the use of anonymization, aggregation, averaging, and similar techniques. With regard to information about the rolling-out of services by using ICT,
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including the necessary information-sharing relationships, coordination among local governments, agencies, companies, and public services must be encouraged.
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Figure 6. Image of the community network system
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6. Discussion
In this section, several challenges for applying GIS databases and ICT systems to regional design are discussed on the basis of our experiences with system development
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and the local practices of municipalities. With the continued progression of information devices for sensor networks, a system
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could be developed to gather and accumulate primary data, which are not currently being processed. Moreover, the system could continuously be updated in response to changing conditions. It is thought that data itself are sufficient for regional policy application (Hilbert and Lopez, 2012a, b). In contrast, municipal planners are not being provided with sufficient information, such as regional energy potential, for policy implementation (see sections 4.1 and 4.2). As a result, most municipalities tend to implement similar policies referring to the national level policies. For example, in Japan, development of mega-solar power stations has been promoted and has been indiscriminately implemented 20
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across the country on the basis of a feed-in tariff policy. As an unexpected consequence, however, solar energy supply greatly affects the grid system by reverse power flow, so that construction of new mega-solar power stations now has to be seriously restricted in
different because of regional differences.
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Japan. As mentioned above, the characteristics of regional energy potential are quite
It is important to create a processed information database for municipalities to choose suitable policies based on regional characteristics and to ensure the reliability of the system. For this reason, we need to promote the information circulation shown in
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Figure 2. We emphasize the following two points for the development of information devices, which work as interfaces between the real world and cyberspace, to maximize
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their potential for use in a GIS database:
Beyond the scope of one individual building, district-level integrated management is expected to expand conventional services. For example, at the peak time for cooling in summer, it is possible to reduce energy demand by inducing people to enter commercial or public facilities, because concentrating people into large-scale facilities and sharing the cooling system should be more efficient than using
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individual air-conditioners in houses. To induce these types of behavior, attentive information presentation is necessary. Therefore, the use of existing energy management systems for homes or offices (usually called HEMS [Home Energy Management System] or BEMS [Building Energy Management System]) is expected
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to expand to the district scale in the future. However, current protocols to control information (such as ECONET Lite) have not been designed for this purpose (see
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section 4.3). More emphasis needs to be placed on modifying the protocols to enable adaption to the overall management environment. One problem is that it is quite hard to acquire micro-geographical data, which are needed to present the real-time activity information required for district-scale management. Fortunately, the rapid development of crowd-sourcing technology has made it possible to get micro-geodata smoothly (Estelles-Arolas and Gonzalez-Ladron-de-Guevara, 2012).
Within a household and office, energy accumulation or generation systems such as photovoltaic or cogeneration system have been introduced to save energy. In the future, the energy management systems in individual buildings are going to be more 21
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complex. Therefore, the “intelligentization” of energy management systems through a systemic control process is inevitable. Especially in Japan, considering its progress in energy market liberalization, various methods of system control corresponding to
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the introduction of new energy systems in which variable pricing rules are allowed should be encouraged. It will be necessary to make use of previously accumulated micro-data to accomplish these tasks. For example, it is possible to effectively utilize weather data and location information, which can be obtained from mobile devices for future energy demand estimation.
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As discussed above, information-based system design is necessary for promoting regional efficient energy and material circulation use. Although basic GIS database
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technology is developing, the mechanisms for updating information dynamically and giving feedback to regional actors in real time are currently insufficient. In particular, because meticulous information control at the micro level is important, the implementation of a regional ICT system is desirable from a social perspective. To implement a regional information system, it is necessary both to overcome the problems of information sharing as described below and to prepare social institutions. As discussed in section 5, to employ a regional information system, it is necessary to
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expand both the network and the range of information that is shared. Therefore, it is vital to provide appropriate protections for privacy. There are limits to simply improving security levels by technological means. In addition to raising the
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technological level, it is vital to train suitable administrators who can be trusted by the region and to establish ethical principles relating to information. The use of mobile information devices has spread widely, enabling us to access
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specific personal behavior data. However, many ad-hoc hardware systems for energy management have already been designed and introduced. To realize a more generalized energy management system, it is important to integrate these existing infrastructures.
As described by Newman et al. (2012), ICT plays an important role in citizen science as the basic infrastructure for data collection, information sharing, and data analysis. In energy management, too, the penetration of ICT can be an incentive for different kinds of people to participate in regional networks as volunteers. Because labor 22
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and other costs are important issues in rolling out a regional energy system, citizen participation is a major factor in the initial success of any system; this aspect of ICT
7. Conclusion
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implementation should be studied in detail.
This study provided an overview of changes in the information environment of cities and regions; this environment includes systems for data observation, collection, and
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accumulation. It proposes the use of a GIS database constructed by using these information sources. In particular, it proposes a method for developing data obtained
material circulation system design.
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from regional planning and management, especially from the viewpoint of energy–
We reveal that diverse accumulated information sources need to be dynamically integrated. Moreover, provision of short-term action support information and the need for a process to realize long-term planning (after various assumptions are made) are important.
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We have described the data sources and environment, but discussion of the construction of the data structure is also important. The use of completely structured data will reduce expandability, whereas the use of completely non-structured data will reduce usability. The future challenge is to design a database system that can later be expanded in terms of
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both data and functions according to specific needs, such as the need for a more detailed
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examination and an expanded scope.
Acknowledgement
This study was conducted with the help of Environment Research Comprehensive
Promotion Expenses from the Japanese Ministry of Environment (1E-1105, 2-1404, and 2RF-1303).
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