■ Introduction
[1] Joint Project for system Development by Relevant industries
This is the state-of-the-art, next generation type of centralized utilities telemetering system
that has been newly developed by Japan Utility Telemetering Association (JUTA) with the
suppert of the Japanese government.
JUTA is a Non-Profit Organization (NPO) of that the members consist of the leading utilities
supplyling companies,communication equipments manufacturers, communication business
operators, meters manufacturers and etc in Japan.
JUTA calls this system “U-Bus Air” or Multi Hopping Wireless Network” in this connection
that the adoption of U-Bus Air is the greatest feature of this system.
This system can be applied to not only a telemetering system in utilities industries such as
city gas, LP gas, water or electric power industry but also various kinds of smart meters.
As the first phase, the standardization of specifications of system for the gas industry that
is composed of about 200 of town gas companies and over 23.000 of LP Gas distributors
has been completed.
In terms of the various benefits due to the introduction of this system such as
(1) improvement of safety and convenience in gas handling
(2) contribution to streamline in gas business,
(3) effect on acceleration of construction of lower carbon society due to energy conservation
and so forth, JUTA, adding to its activities for the dissemination to the domestic gas companies,
is ready to promote the technology transfer of this system to the overseas countries in
the expectation that the specification of this system will be approved by IEEE802.15.4g in the U.S
by the end of 2011 at the latest.
For that purpose, JUTA has made the specification of this system public to the website
so that anyone can access to or darnlord it if they contest to this Agreement attached hereto.
[2] Background and Target in System Development
In Japan, a variety of the projects for the creation of smart society that can contribute to
the one of lower carbon society have been developed energetically in collaboration with
the government, academic and industrial sectors. Almost all of the total demand for grid electric power
is supplied monopoly by the nine big electric power companies.
The business scale of each electric power company is large enough for each of them to carry out
separately the commercialization of its own smart grid technology.
On the contrary, since the business scale of the most part of gas companies other than some of
large-scale town gas companies is too small to develop by itself a centralized gas telemetering system
for its use, the development and standardization of such system has been strongly desired among
them in store for the coming smart society age.
Taking into account the special situation of Japan’s gas industry as well as the global targets of
energy conservation and CO2 reduction, this system has been developed and standardized to
meet the targets such as
(1) to help contribute the energy conservation and reduce CO2 emission
(2) to be lower equipment and running costs
(3) to be highly durable, easy to operate and maintenance free
(4) to conform to the U S’s IEEE802.15.4g standards