Professor Tomio Okawa
The University of Electro-Communications
My name is Tomio Okawa of the University of Electro-Communications, and I am pleased to announce that I have succeeded Dr. Takashi Kiga, former head of the Power & Energy Systems Division, as the 102nd head of the division. Although I feel that I am not strong enough, I will try to manage the division smoothly with the cooperation of Dr. Shuichi Umezawa (vice head of the division), Prof. Yoichi Utanohara (division secretary), members of the Steering Committee, and all the registrants of our division.
This year is the 35th year of the Power & Energy Systems Division (PESD). In writing this greeting, I accessed the division’s website to refer to the past Newsletters, and found that the Newsletters from No. 0 (March 1990) to No. 75 (January 2024) were neatly organized, and I was impressed by the efforts of the past and present chairpersons of the Public Relations committee. In the first Newsletter issued in November 1990, Prof. Saburo Toda of Tohoku University, who served as the first Division Head, wrote a greeting in which he introduced the three main goals of the Power & Energy Systems Division at the time of its establishment: (1) to revitalize the academic symposiums and conferences, (2) to make the Division open, especially to members from industry, and (3) to provide services to Division members. Looking at the current Power & Energy Systems Division from this perspective, we can see that (1) the PESD is very active in organizing domestic and international conferences, as can be seen in the Symposium on Power and Energy Systems, the organized sessions in the Annual JSME Congress, ICONE, ICOPE, PATRAM, FDR, etc., (2) the PESD is promoting the exchange among the members from industry, government, and academia through various committees, subcommittees, research groups, seminar & salon, etc., (3) the PESD also provides high-quality services by actively organizing various tours and seminars. I believe that these activities are more than satisfactory, and this is due to the efforts of those who have supported the Power & Energy Systems Division to date. The Newsletter No. 1 also mentions the technical fields covered by the Power & Energy Systems Division, such as power and energy systems and related basic technologies, energy and environmental engineering, technologies related to energy conversion, energy transportation, and energy storage, etc. Since the establishment of the PESD, the boundary conditions for energy and environmental issues have changed dramatically due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, the subsequent severe accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and the deterioration of energy security caused by conflicts, but the main technical fields identified at the establishment of the Division have become more important. For this reason, it is first and foremost important to continue our activities to achieve the three goals set at the time of its establishment, and I intend to do so firmly.
On the other hand, the current challenges facing the Power & Energy Systems Division include the declining number of registered members and the increasing age structure of the registered members. Considering that energy and environmental issues are more important in the future than at present, we need to encourage young engineers and researchers to play an active role in our division, and we would like to discuss ways to achieve this. Next, one of the major characteristics of our division is that it has the groundwork for members from different fields and from industry, government, and academia to work together. For this reason, we hope to achieve unique results by taking advantage of this feature without falling into sectionalism. In addition, I have recently been thinking that if one of the missions of universities is to produce human resources required by industry, it is desirable that the image of human resources that universities are trying to nurture should match the human resources required by industry to a certain extent. The Power & Energy Systems Division offers many opportunities to exchange opinions with people who are active on the front lines of industry, and I am wondering if I could take advantage of these opportunities to resolve some of these questions.
Lastly, I am sorry to talk about my personal involvement with the Power & Energy Systems Division, but I presented my research on a compressed air energy storage system at the annual meeting of JSME in 1996, for which I received the PESD Best Presentation Award, and this led me to move from the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry to Osaka University in 1999. For this reason, I would like to make a small contribution to the development of this division with deep personal feelings, and I would appreciate your continued cooperation, guidance and encouragement.