Seeking to explore power as crucial factor in the design of the built environment, we will look at energy systems and related objects, from sites of generation to spaces of consumption, from distribution networks to control rooms.
Tutors: Filip Geerts and Sanne van den Breemer
Director of Studies: Salomon Frausto
Contributors: Santiago Ardila, Juan Benavides, Daniella Camarena, Stef Dingen, Marco Fusco, Jack Garay Arauzo, Theodora Gelali, Shaiwanti Gupta, Hao Hsu, Marianthi Papangelopoulou, Felipe Quintero, Gent Shehu, Siyuan Wang
@theberlage.nl
The Blackout
Failure of a system, Light, Distribution, Regional, Blackout, Tokyo, Commercial, Image
Looking into the most recent blackouts in Tokyo, in September 9th 2019, a tornado struck Ichihara City in Chiba, east of Tokyo. In the day of the tornado, some areas of Japan suffered heavy flooding, leaving thousands of households without power. This natural phenomenon killed one person and left 935.000 households without electricity at its peak, and 150.000 later, after some days.1 With headlines in newspapers and websites like “Tokyo Electric Power Company remains in crisis after Fukushima”2, journalists underlined the prolonged outage of the blackout blaming the company for the poor management of the situation under these severe circumstances.
While Tepco had more than 300 power supply cars, which could have been connected to distribution lines to supply power directly to buildings, only about 100 were in use as of September 16, a week after the storm hit. Meanwhile, people fell sick as temperatures topped 30 C, and hospitals were forced to run on limited supplies of backup power.3 The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings did not make clear statements to the residents of Chiba and sending these contradictory messages added to the public outrage. The day after Typhoon Faxia hit, Tepco stated that it would try to fully restore electricity by the following day. Three days later, another announcement was made stating that a full recovery of electricity would take two weeks. According to articles, speculation arose that Tepco, in which the government owns a controlling stake, was under intense pressure to make an announcement and reassure the public that it was responding quickly without taking into account the according parameters.
1. “Japan's Tepco Struggles to Restore Power After Typhoon”, Usnews.com, Accessed March 10, 2020. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2019-09-10/japans-tepco-struggles-to-restore-power-after-typhoon-as-two-die-media
2. Okutsu Akane, “Typhoon blackouts reveal weak points in Tokyo utility Tepco”, Accessed March 10, 2020. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Typhoon-blackouts-reveal-weak-points-in-Tokyo-utility-Tepco
3. Ibid.
See ephemera: 60 & 61
Failure of a system, Light, Distribution, Regional, Blackout, Tokyo, Commercial, Image
Looking into the most recent blackouts in Tokyo, in September 9th 2019, a tornado struck Ichihara City in Chiba, east of Tokyo. In the day of the tornado, some areas of Japan suffered heavy flooding, leaving thousands of households without power. This natural phenomenon killed one person and left 935.000 households without electricity at its peak, and 150.000 later, after some days.1 With headlines in newspapers and websites like “Tokyo Electric Power Company remains in crisis after Fukushima”2, journalists underlined the prolonged outage of the blackout blaming the company for the poor management of the situation under these severe circumstances.
While Tepco had more than 300 power supply cars, which could have been connected to distribution lines to supply power directly to buildings, only about 100 were in use as of September 16, a week after the storm hit. Meanwhile, people fell sick as temperatures topped 30 C, and hospitals were forced to run on limited supplies of backup power.3 The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings did not make clear statements to the residents of Chiba and sending these contradictory messages added to the public outrage. The day after Typhoon Faxia hit, Tepco stated that it would try to fully restore electricity by the following day. Three days later, another announcement was made stating that a full recovery of electricity would take two weeks. According to articles, speculation arose that Tepco, in which the government owns a controlling stake, was under intense pressure to make an announcement and reassure the public that it was responding quickly without taking into account the according parameters.
1. “Japan's Tepco Struggles to Restore Power After Typhoon”, Usnews.com, Accessed March 10, 2020. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2019-09-10/japans-tepco-struggles-to-restore-power-after-typhoon-as-two-die-media
2. Okutsu Akane, “Typhoon blackouts reveal weak points in Tokyo utility Tepco”, Accessed March 10, 2020. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Typhoon-blackouts-reveal-weak-points-in-Tokyo-utility-Tepco
3. Ibid.
See ephemera: 60 & 61