「２００１年のエネルギー」特集 ＩＩＩ エレクトロニクス産業とエネルギー

Abstract

Electronic industries of Japan are divided into 3 sections ; consumer electronic appliances, industrial electronic apparatuses, and electronic components. The annual products and the rates of growth of the respective sections were almost equal during the 2nd crisis, and this status has changed recently.Computers in the section of industrial electronic apparatuses and microprocessors in the section of electronic components grow up in high rates, compared with others. It is expected that these tendencies will continue further for several years at least.Energy analyses of refregerators, color-televisions and room-air-conditioners show that these appliances in the uses consume the energies 12-37 times as much as the energies consumed in their manufacturing stages. For the sake of saving energy, it is very important to reduce the running energies by the appliances.In the decade after the start of the Moon Light Project, the electric power consumptions of the appliances above mentioned have been reduced to 40-60% of the initial amounts. The principal technologies contributing to the reductions of the power consumptions were; (1) improvements in efficiensies of components, (2) inovations of ideas and design concepts, and (3) optimized operations by electronic controls. In recent years, various consumer appliances and machines are controlled by electronic controllers having microcomputers so as not only to extend increased facilities and amenities to their users but also to save much energy. Examples of electronic controls of a room-air-conditioner and automobiles are described.When costs of high performance computers will go down further in near future, it will be possible that various sophisticated design methods and control technologies, which are applied to large processes like electric power plants today, are applied to consumer appliances and machines. As the examples, a 3-dimensional heat and fluid flow computing program applied to analyse comfortable characteristics of a room with heating, the modern control theory applied to a domestic hot water supplier equipped with a heat-pump, and the adaptive control theory applied to a solar energy collecting system are shown.