Statistics
Electric Power Systems
The power generation equipment in Japan is steadily migrating to highly efficient steam and gas turbines and generators, for efficient utilization of energy resources. In the power transmission and transformation field, system interconnection equipment construction and aged equipment replacement have been carried out as planned in order to ensure stable supply of power. Accordingly, demand is expected for transformers, switchgears, and electric power converters. From a long-term aspect, renewable energy is positioned as one of major power sources in the 6th Strategic Energy Plan authorized in the Cabinet Decision of October 2021. This decision was made also under the background of the established Green Growth Strategy for achieving Carbon Neutrality in 2050 and spreading concept based on SDGs. In addition, the development of the 7th Strategic Energy Plan started in 2024. Its draft will be prepared within this year through discussions on further effective utilization of renewable energy power sources, green transformation (GX) on the demand side, etc.
Currently, the Government is studying the feasibility of increasing exports of infrastructure systems to emerging and other countries. It is expected that excellent Japanese technologies and products in the field of gas turbine combined cycle power generation (GTCC), power transmission and distribution, etc. will be widely adopted outside Japan. The outline of a new strategy far-sighted for 2030 was decided in the “Economic Cooperation Infrastructure Strategy Council” held in June 2024. This new strategy will become an alternative to the “Infrastructure Systems Global Development Strategy 2025” with the prospect that the demand for infrastructure systems continues to grow in the global market.
Industrial systems and equipment
In the industrial systems and equipment field, there has been significant technological innovation in factory automation equipment, including programmable logic controllers (PLC), general purpose inverters and servo systems, because of growing social demands such as energy conservation, environment, reliability, and the like. Industrial systems and equipment, with higher functionality and higher performance, contribute to effective automation of overall production systems for the process from order acceptance, through design and manufacturing, to inspection and shipment. This has brought many benefits such as quality improvement, cost reduction and energy saving. Consequently, application is expanding for use in various fields.
DX (Digital Transformation) has been introduced as a concept of technology innovation by data. Accordingly, with focus on the DX, and based on the new global trend of ICT including IoT, AI, blockchain technology, the Electrical Machinery Industry is expected to assume a key role for innovation of the “MONODZUKURI” manufacturing world in response to such emerging requests.
Home Electrical Appliances
The home electrical appliances industry in Japan, under increasing globalization, promoted production shift to China and the Southeast Asian countries where demand expansion was anticipated. Accordingly, production in Japan showed a gradually declining trend, and hollowing out of Japanese industry was considered problematic. Under such circumstances, companies have conducted overseas business development through retaining in Japan and strengthening of the mother functions such as research & development and production engineering. The recent trend of production volume in Japan shows gradual increase mainly for high-end goods.
According to the latest trend of home electrical appliances industry, companies have increased efforts focused on the new lifestyles established after the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Demand is expected to continue for health/hygiene products and sophisticated/high value-added products that make home environments comfortable.
Population has already started to decline, though the number of households is anticipated to increase continuously. Consequently, future demand in Japan for “white goods” of home electrical appliances will not significantly increase, while replacement demand takes a leading part. In addition, people’s lifestyle has largely been changing recently, as the number of few/single-person households is increasing due to decreasing birthrates, aging population, late marriage and unmarried persons. Increasing number of double-income families is also one of the factors for the lifestyle change. For expanding the demand of “white goods” of home electrical appliances under such circumstances, it is considered important to make sure of the needs diversifying to the lifestyle change and to develop products satisfying consumers' needs utilizing IoT, AI and other technologies.