Electric Grid of Japan before the Great Depression: A Comparison with Germany

Abstract

Japan is one of the most successfully electrified countries in the world, but it does not have a unified national electric power grid: the country is divided into two zones with different standards for alternating current (50 and 60 Hz). To explore the root of Japan's split grid, this essay adopts technology historian Thomas Hughes’ socio-technical system frameworks and compares the history of national grid formation in Germany and Japan in the 1920s. In both countries, foresighted engineers and entrepreneurs noticed the necessity of a unified national grid—something we see from the case study of Matsunaga Yasuzaemon and Arthur Koepchen. However, government policy in Japan regarding frequency unification was inconsistent, whereas the German provincial governments set up clear visions for grid construction. Moreover, Japanese ideology of the day preferred market competition, whereas in Germany electric utilities coordinated with each other. For Germany, the 1920s heralded the beginning of a European grid, whereas Japan's bifurcated frequency standard hindered the formation of a unified national grid. And Japan's split grid can even result in the electric power system's fragility in the face of natural disasters such as the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011.