Sustainable and Smart Energy Society

Abstract

Climate change caused by global warming is the most serious environmental problem causing frequent occurrence of abnormal weather, depletion of drinking water, loss of residence due to rising sea level and so on. It is almost specified that the main cause of global warming is the increase of CO2 and other greenhouse gases caused by the large amount of fossil fuel consumption by human beings. In order to avoid this crisis, the Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015. The raises of global average temperature have to keep low enough and pursuing an effort to keep it by 1.5°C before the Industrial Revolution. The goal was to make greenhouse gas emission substantially zero by the second half of this century. It is essential to shift the decarbonized energy society that can lead comfortable social life using decarbonized energy such as renewable energy with the minimum necessary. In addition to further accelerating smart energy saving and power saving measures that have advanced so far since the Great East Japan Earthquake, it is necessary to reduce power demand and promote efficient and effective use of power by promoting energy management etc. Furthermore, it is necessary to promote efforts on both supply side and demand side, breaking out from excessive reliance on large-scale centralized power supply and promoting the spread of stand-alone, distributed power sources such as renewable energy and high efficiency co-generation systems. Hydrogen energy has many advantages such as environmental performance that emits only water at the usage stage, diversification of energy supply sources, high economic ripple effect, and ability to be an independent energy source at the time of disaster occurrence. If the use of hydrogen derived from renewable energy is put into practice in the future, it can be effective means for the decarbonizing society.