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People walking past a cooling mist station during a heatwave in Tokyo on Aug 24.
PHOTO: EPA
Walter Sim
Published Sep 07, 2026, 05:00 AM
Updated Sep 07, 2026, 05:00 AM
AI generated
TOKYO – In pursuit of greater energy resilience, Tokyo is preparing to tap the fierce winds whipping across its remote Pacific islands, Governor Yuriko Koike told The Straits Times in an exclusive interview.
While many think of Tokyo as a bustling metropolis, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) also administers 219 islands stretching hundreds of kilometres south into the Pacific Ocean, 11 of which are inhabited.
Japan is a resource-scarce nation heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels, and these isolated outposts represent an untapped green frontier.
“Offshore wind power generation carries vital significance for our energy security,” Koike said in an interview to mark her 10th anniversary as Tokyo governor.
“We are moving forward with plans to install floating offshore wind turbines on the waters surrounding the Izu Islands, aiming for the introduction of gigawatt-class capacity.”
A gigawatt-scale wind farm – capable of producing at least one billion watts of power – can generate enough clean electricity to power at least 750,000 average Japanese households simultaneously.
Koike famously launched Japan’s national “Cool Biz” campaign in 2005 as environment minister, urging office workers to ditch their suits and ties. Now, she has made energy security and climate adaptation central pillars of her gubernatorial legacy.
As Tokyo targets net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, her administration is combining clean energy deployment with heavy civil infrastructure designed to withstand extreme weather and seismic events.
Onshore, Koike is championing next-generation perovskite solar cells that are dubbed “Air-Solar”.
These ultra-thin, flexible photovoltaic films can wrap around curved building facades, thus transforming ordinary office windows and walls into power generators.
Crucially, the cells are produced using iodine, a raw material of which Japan is the world’s second-largest producer after Chile, commanding a 30 per cent share of the global market.
Tokyo was the first prefecture in Japan to mandate solar panel installations on newly constructed single-family homes starting in April 2025, a policy that helped TMG hit its municipal energy storage targets two years ahead of schedule.
Downstream, the capital is accelerating its transition to a hydrogen-based economy. Following the launch of Tokyo’s first major green hydrogen production facility in late 2025, TMG is studying pipeline delivery networks around Haneda International Airport and coastal logistics hubs.
The city aims to scale its current fleet of about 150 fuel-cell buses into 5,000 commercial hydrogen vehicles, including trucks and taxis, by 2030.
“Industries and communications are undergoing a revolutionary transformation led by artificial intelligence,” Koike noted, linking her environmental agenda to economic progress.
Tokyo already hosts over 100 power-hungry data centre facilities, and securing localised, green power will increasingly be an economic prerequisite. “The test before us is how we can harness this change, and convert it into an opportunity.”
This energy transition is taking place alongside an aggressive push to shield the city against severe weather.
Beyond measures such as the installation of mist-spraying systems to make extreme heatwaves more bearable, Koike signed off on a headline-grabbing policy in April 2026, allowing male public servants to wear shorts and T-shirts to work.
While the dress code has faced a slow adoption rate in the private sector, the policy reflects Koike’s belief that TMG must lead by example to normalise climate-conscious practices.
Tokyo is also defending against catastrophic deluge – intense, sudden downpours dubbed “guerilla rainstorms” in Japanese – that have severely tested the city’s defences. On Aug 22, a violent cloudburst dumped over 120mm of rain per hour in parts of Tokyo, closely following another intense downpour a week earlier that killed 13 in neighbouring Chiba prefecture.
Tokyo’s primary shield lies deep underground: an intricate cavern of subterranean regulating reservoirs and flood diversion tunnels. Between 2015 and 2025, TMG expanded its subterranean flood storage capacity from 2.12 million cu m to 2.73 million cu m.
“We have spent the last 10 years advancing and upgrading these systems,” Koike said of these hidden flood-prevention engineering feats that Tokyo is still working to expand. “Even when torrential downpours strike, while there may be some localised flooding, our subterranean storage facilities prevent major disasters.”
Simultaneously, the city has been swapping out its ageing municipal water and sewerage mains for flexible, earthquake-resistant piping designed to bend without snapping if a seismic event strikes the capital.
As a result, Tokyo has far outpaced the rest of Japan on this front, making its utilities network more resilient to a major tremor.
The seismic resistance rate of Tokyo’s water mains connected to critical facilities stands at 92 per cent compared to a national average of 47 per cent, while its sewerage pipeline resistance has reached 87 per cent, compared to 53 per cent nationwide.
For Koike, maintaining high standards of urban safety and climate resilience is directly tied to Tokyo’s standing as an international financial and business hub.
Koike, who also chairs the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Champion Mayors network, said: “Instead of looking at Tokyo through a purely domestic lens, collaborating with other cities and sharing our mutual know-how ultimately translates into safety and security for all our citizens.”
To sustain its competitive edge, Tokyo is investing heavily in talent and new business.
In 2023, Koike launched the annual SusHi Tech Tokyo (Sustainable High City Tech Tokyo), which has grown to be recognised as Asia’s largest start-up and innovation gathering. In 2026, the event attracted a record 60,779 participants from 103 countries and regions, bringing together venture capitalists, start-up founders, and civic leaders.
Tokyo is also grooming the next generation. In July, TMG and New York University began discussing establishing a branch campus in its western suburb of Tama. And, under the Tokyo Global Passport initiative, Tokyo provides travel grants of up to 900,000 yen (S$7,300) to encourage local university students to study abroad.
“My goal is to drive Japan’s sustainable development through both ‘hardware’ (infrastructure) and ‘software’ (human capital and systems),” Koike said.
Walter Sim is Japan correspondent at The Straits Times. Based in Tokyo, he writes about political, economic and socio-cultural issues.
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