Katsushika-ku, Tokyo - Kanamachi Water Treatment Plant - Installation of Cogeneration Facilities (around 2000)

Katsushika-ku, Tokyo - Kanamachi Water Treatment Plant - Installation of Cogeneration Facilities (around 2000)
Around the year 2000, Japan's energy policy and urban infrastructure management were at a turning point. The public sector was required to increase efficiency and reduce costs amid the prolonged stagnation that followed the collapse of the bubble economy, and at the same time, awareness of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve energy was rising against the backdrop of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Urban infrastructure was also beginning to be tasked with the new role of reducing environmental impact in addition to providing a stable supply.

Water purification plants are facilities that consume large amounts of electricity, and in the past they were totally dependent on receiving power from electric power companies. The Kanamachi Water Treatment Plant in Katsushika-ku, Tokyo, is one of the largest water treatment plants in Tokyo, and is a huge infrastructure, processing up to 800,000 tons per day. The sheer size of its power usage posed a challenge in terms of both energy costs and supply risk.

Against this backdrop, a cogeneration system combining gas turbine power generation and waste heat utilization was introduced at the Kanamachi Water Treatment Plant. This technology improves overall efficiency and reduces energy waste by effectively utilizing heat as well as power generation. A group of three companies, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Shimizu Corporation, and Power Development Corporation, were responsible for the installation, which was symbolic in that it introduced distributed energy to a large-scale public facility.

This initiative not only saves energy, but also improves resistance to disasters and supply instability. With the emphasis on the resilience of urban infrastructure since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the introduction of distributed power sources to water treatment plants, which are lifeline facilities, can be positioned as a pioneering example of environmentally friendly energy conversion in a large city.