ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it would participate in an integrated information management platform project, the first phase of the Akita Smart City Project Basic Plan (*1) that was established by Akita City in March 2011. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation and ESRI Japan Corporation will take part in the project, which is led by I.M. Service Co., Ltd., a local company, and IBM Japan, Ltd.

The smart city integrated information management platform that will be developed under this project will enable integrated management of basic information, such as the names, addresses, and floor areas of 445 facilities owned by the city, energy information obtained through sensors installed in each facility, and map information. It can also display particularly important information on a screen called a dashboard. In the current fiscal year, the project will develop an environment in which energy data will be monitored, measured, and analyzed in the city’s five facilities (Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts, Akita City Workers General Welfare Center, Akita City Mt.Taihei Nature Study Center, Akita City Middle-aged and Senior Workers Welfare Center, and Akita City Senior Citizen Welfare Center). From the next fiscal year, the project will aim to effectively reduce energy consumption by providing services such as the visualization of the energy consumption level and energy reduction support.

ITOCHU will provide two services that are required for this integrated information management platform. Akita City will use ITOCHU’s ecoFORTE EMS service to achieve the visualization of energy data. It will also use the ecoFORTE Reporter service to automatically create documents that need to be submitted under the revised Energy Saving Act. The city will adopt the IBM Intelligent Building Management of IBM Japan, Ltd. as the core system to collect and analyze a range of energy data and alerts about its facilities, and to provide results of the analysis and information sources on a mashup portal display. As the basic infrastructure for the system described above, the city will use TechnoCUVIC, which are cloud computing services provided by ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation. With respect to the development of applications related to the map information systems, the city will use the ArcGIS Desktop/Server and ArcGIS Online map services that are provided by ESRI Japan Corporation.

ITOCHU will seek to expand the IT-based energy management business, which supports the energy conservation of municipalities and companies, by not only providing a service for the visualization of energy data of multiple locations, similar to the services that ITOCHU provides to Akita City as described above, but also offering automatic control of air-conditioning, lighting and other facilities.