Abstract
Many power plants were damaged by the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami on March 11, 2011. Action for electricity saving, in tight balance of power supply and demand, is significantly important to avoid unplanned massive power outages and scheduled blackouts. We have constructed "Networking for Prevention of Blackouts," which uses regional networks to call for electricity saving in the region, in which 55 local governments had participated in summer 2011. We requested households in the network for electricity saving, when electricity demand increased more than 90% of the power supply capacity of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), on July 15 and Aug 18, 2011. We also made an experimental study to verify the effect of this system, together with 4 local governments. According to the questionnaire survey, 67% of the households took electricity saving action at the request. We also investigated the change in total electricity consumption of households participating in the study. The result showed that households have decreased power consumption by 6 - 10%, at the time of peak consumption in the jurisdiction of TEPCO. The effectiveness of the network shown by this study indicates that it is important to extend it and to pursue steady implementation for the achievement of the electricity-saving society without hampering economic activity.
