Page 458 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

428 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

FIGURE 21.3 Higashi Matsushima disaster-ready smart eco town. Adapted from Higashi
Matsushima City, 2016: 15.

480 kWh of battery capacity along with a 500-kW biodiesel generator to
provide backup capacity.
The total capacity is enough to cover all the community’s power needs over
a short period of several hours, should the main grid go down. If the main grid
outage is for more than a short period, the system suspends delivering power to
the residential units. It can thus provide electricity to the community hall and
other facilities (including four medical) for up to a few days. Even in a pro-
tracted disaster, when the biodiesel is exhausted, solar generation and battery
storage capacity are able to provide essential supplies of electricity to the
community hall and critical care facilities (MOE, 2016a, pp. 17e21).
Of course, Japan is often dismissed as replete with wasteful public works
and top-down policy making. And this kind of criticism has been directed at its
smart communities, particularly by Japanese fans of “small is beautiful” and
market fundamentalists alike. Both dislike planning and industrial policy,
respectively, privileging citizen initiatives and market-conforming incentives.
So it is important to note that the Higashi Matsushima project is neither a
white elephant nor the product of administrative fiat from the central agencies.
Quite the contrary. Higashi Matsushima exemplifies Japan’s smart investment
and collaborative governance, involving an impressive diversity of stake-
holders in planning projects that maximize benefits to the national and local
communities.