New e-automotive based services: the Japanese Smart Communities and their experimentations

In connection with the climatic imperatives, the objective of sustainable development leads to search less energy consumption practices, at least in the field of non-renewable resources. In the urban world, the energy consumption is still particularly important in the two areas of housing and transport. Attempts to create more energy efficient cities are already old, as evidenced by many achievements of sustainable districts, or eco-districts (mainly residential areas) in various European countries. In Japan, the government has also initiated many programs and experiments in this sense: Eco-towns, Environmental Sustainable Transport Model project or Eco Model Cities. However, these new districts have often focused on recycling and on reducing energy consumption by developing new standards in the construction of buildings. Today, the development of smart grids is a new technical step in the regulation of energy demand. This opens up interesting perspectives in order to make better use of local renewable energy production whose uncertain and timely varying level makes it generally difficult to stabilize the power grid (problems of balancing networks) and gives therefore more emphasis on electrical vehicles. The proposed paper concerns an extensive program launched by the Japanese METI in 2010 to promote the development of "smart communities". Linking energy and urban issues, the objective of Smart Communities is to encourage Japanese firms to implement "sustainable services" (electric vehicle, etc.) and to engage local companies and businesses, and of course inhabitants in their effective use. The aim of the Smart Communities goes therefore beyond the simple regulation of the energy flows, since it is also about involving people, services and companies in the construction of less energy-consuming lifestyles to also promote the reduction of CO2 emissions. The program relies on a number of demonstrators selected by METI: four pilot areas (out of 20 candidate cities), combining a coordinated use of energy (including renewable energy), the transformation of the urban / regional transport system (arbitration between the use of the car - electric or hybrid - and public transport) and the changing of urban way and rhythms of life. This comprehensive program, involving both public and private, is also part of a clear industrial strategy to take a leading position on the green technologies markets of the future.