Social Infrastructure Systems

Trends such as ongoing transition to carbon neutrality and advancing digitalization have brought major changes to the structure of industry over recent years along with increasing electrification. At the same time, the requirements for electricity transmission and distribution(T&D) are becoming more complex, due to factors such as labor shortages and the growing severity of natural disasters. As a result, combining security of supply with environmental and economic performance calls for new practices that go beyond existing improvements.

Hitachi sees this challenge as an opportunity for the future. Accordingly, it is working to evolve its Grid DX business for next-generation practices, a shift that involves adopting smarter maintenance practices to address labor shortages and the building of autonomous energy systems with the ability to redirect local energy supplies. This helps these systems cope with the rising severity of natural disasters while still maintaining backbone T&D infrastructure to ensure security of supply. With the aim of creating a society in which anyone can be involved in the energy system, Hitachi is also putting energy service platforms in place that generate value through the use of data and the digital transformation of electric power. By incorporating the expertise of Hitachi Energy Japan Ltd., which combines a history of international projects with operational experience gained in Japan’s domestic market, Hitachi intends to contribute to the creation of sustainable societies by building more advanced T&D networks through collaborative creation with customers.

Given estimates that the quantity of waste will double by 2050, a marketplace for recycled materials will have a central role to play in circular businesses that transform waste into valuable resources. The purpose of the platform is to make resource recycling more efficient through the online matching of companies that supply or consume recycled materials. One notable feature is its encouragement for cross-industry use of recycled materials through the application of materials informatics (MI) and artificial intelligence (AI) to estimate quality and to propose optimal blending recipes. The marketplace also supports credit assessment and the financing of recycled materials trading to make it easier for sellers to manage the financial side of trading. This was done by augmenting functions for trading recycled materials developed by Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation with financial functions acquired through collaboration with MUFG Bank, Ltd.

In the future, Hitachi will accelerate the establishment of a circular economy, not only by making it easier to assess quality and by providing functions for recommending forming processes, but also by providing support for compliance with international standards and encouraging green transformation (GX) through the traceability of recycled material use in ways that work with digital product passports.