The UN has adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed to promote prosperity while also protecting the environment. The seventh of these goals is “Affordable and Clean Energy”. This is an area in which Mitsubishi Electric excels, developing new technologies related to energy management to reduce unnecessary energy waste.
Energy Access for an Increasing Population
There are five targets defined for SDG7. They relate to providing universal access to affordable, safe, and sustainable energy; investing in and advancing the use of renewable energy and increasing its share in the global energy mix; while raising the efficiency of energy used by society as a whole.
At first glance, the world seems well on its way towards achieving these targets. According to UN Development Project statistics, there were great strides in increasing energy access between 2000 and 2018. Today, 90% of the world’s population can use electricity with the flip of a switch. The share of clean energy in our daily power consumption is also rising. And yet, there are reasons why energy was deemed a crucial enough issue to be elevated onto the SDG platform.
One reason is that the world’s population — today at 7.5 billion people — is expected to continue to grow. Ensuring safe, affordable energy for all while keeping pace with this population trend requires further technological development and investment promotion
Solutions for Managing Energy Use
- 100 Sewage Pump Stations
- 200 Surface Level Control Pump Stations
- 600 Weirs
- 13 Wastewater Plants
- MAPS is running on virtual cloud servers
- 13 independent MAPS Servers 2500 – 5000 points each
- 5 independent MAPS Servers 80,000 points each
- 30 Remote MAPS Clients to every MAPS Server
- Total number of used Scan points: 275.000
While it is important to develop technologies that will help utilities increase the share of renewable energy in the power they supply, it is equally important to produce innovations that facilitate lower energy use by consumers. Research indicates that simply by optimizing the energy used by industries and by existing buildings, it is possible to cut the world’s energy consumption by 14%. This would mean being able to hit the targets in SDG7 without needing to invest in additional energy infrastructure.
One solution contributing to greater energy efficiency is Mitsubishi Electric’s Building Management System (BMS). Supported by supervisory control and data acquisition software, the BMS collects and analyzes detailed data related to the electricity, gas, and water used by a building to provide key insights that can help to build management greatly reduce the building’s energy consumption.
One building that has incorporated this solution — Japan House São Paulo, a Japanese cultural centre in Brazil funded by the Japanese government—was certified LEED Platinum, the highest LEED level. LEED — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—is a certification program offered by the US Green Building Council and is considered one of the world’s most reliable green building rating tools.
Mitsubishi Electric has also developed a BMS exclusively for the Taiwanese market, where the company has had a presence for 70 years. Government-led initiatives to encourage buildings to become more energy-efficient or switch to renewable energy have provided a key opening for Mitsubishi Electric, whose Taiwan-focused BMS is expected to drive demand for intelligent buildings on the island.
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