No. 74: Spread of clean generation under the initiative of citizens (August 10, 2011)

Citizens jointly invest in the construction of a natural energy power generation facility. This is the concept of “Citizens cooperative generation facilities (Citizen-funded facility),” and it is attracting attention nationwide. It pays back profits that it gets from selling electricity to electric power companies. After the March 11 disaster, organizations that plan clean generation receive increasing amounts of investments and contributions, and people involved in the projects believe that grass-roots activities will help clean energy spread nationwide.

Citizens of a community in Saitama Prefecture installed photovoltaic panels on the roof of its community building (about 200 square meters) last December. The photovoltaic generation with a maximum capacity of 3.6 kW produces 70% of the power requirements of this building. The president of this community is very happy with the photovoltaic generation because citizens using this building for community activities like dancing class get aware of the importance of electricity.

Sayama Environment Citizen Network took the initiative in the construction of this building. It collected about 900,000 yen from citizens and received subsidies from the prefecture. The building was constructed with a total investment of 2,400,000 yen, and it is designated as an evacuation center of the community. The community office is considering installing photovoltaic panels on other buildings with the profits it gets by selling electricity.

Ohisama (Sunlight) Energy Fund in Tokyo has so far built about 160 citizen-funded generation facilities, and it has been receiving an increasing number of inquiries on investment. It is planning a small hydraulic generation facility in Toyama Prefecture, and it has already received about 700 requests for information on investment, three times more requests before the 3/11. Environment Partnership Office Hokkaido is planning to construct a wind generation facility in Hokkaido next year, and the study meeting held by this office drew about 100 participants.

Kiko Network in Kyoto conducted survey on citizen-funded generation facilities. The first citizen-funded generation facility was construction in Miyazaki Prefecture in 1994. There were 185 facilities of clean energy, of which 165 facilities are for photovoltaic generation, 19 for wind generation, and 1 for small hydraulic generation in 2007. Currently, more than 200 citizen-funded generation facilities are supposed to be operating. Their generation capacity ranges from a few kW to more than 1,000 kW.

The political turmoil is still prevailing without any sign of termination. As is often the case, grass-roots activities are going on regardless of the disgusting leadership struggle in the government.

No. 73: Spread of renewable energy depends on the purchase price paid by electric power companies (August 9, 2011)

A city of Akita Prefecture in the Tohoku district built a woody biomass power plant with a maximum capacity of 3,000 kW eight years ago. A company affiliated with a leading plywood producer and a lumber sawing cooperative association jointly built this plant with an investment of about 1,500 million yen. The plant tried to sell generated power to Tohoku Electric Power, but the price offered by Tohoku Electric Power was 3.5 yen per kW. This price was totally out of the question. The plant is currently selling power to a neighboring plywood producer for 10 yen per kW in the red.

The Japanese government eventually started to discuss the special measures law for renewable energy in the House of Representatives. It is supposed to set the purchase price of renewable energy (except photovoltaic generation) at 15-20 yen per kW. The president of a company that builds hydraulic power units told that the purchase price should be more than 20 yen per kW to spread renewable energy. His company has installed more than 10 small hydraulic generators, which use agricultural water and spring water, across the country. However, the purchase price paid by electric power companies is generally less than 10 yen per kW. Not a few municipalities are reluctant to introduce the small hydraulic generator because the purchase price of 10 yen per kW is too low to introduce a unit that needs about several tens of million yen including installation and maintenance.

A small town in the Tohoku district has 16 wind generators and generates 1.6 times more power than needed by this town. It has the potential capacity to generate 190 times more power than town’s requirements. This town is abundant in energy resources including wind and sunlight. The leaders of this town are making efforts to make Japanese understand the reality that rural areas can supply renewable energy. Despite the energetic activities by rural areas, the central government is rather slow to respond.

In Japan, 10 electric power companies monopolize the electric business, and each of them enjoys the regional monopoly. In the early 20th century, Monzaemon Matsunaga dubbed the King of Electricity laid the foundation of Japan’s current power business. The power business was monopolized by only one company until he took the initiative in the power business. He divided the one-company monopoly into nine companies (Okinawa joined later to make the total 10). It is true that his strong initiative helped Japan achieve such tremendous economic success.

He was truly a great leader. His secretary purchases a first-class train ticket (most expensive ticket) for him. When he received the ticket, he said to the secretary, “Take it back to the window and purchase a third-class train ticket (Cheapest ticket).” Can you believe this? He was 75 years old. This alone is good enough to show how great he was.

No. 72: Prospect of natural energy in Japan – wave power generation (July 4, 2011)

In Japan, ocean energy is not positioned as new energy in the law designed to promote the utilization of new energy, nor is it subject to the buyback system. In Europe, three ocean power generators have been running offshore Portugal since September 2008 as the world’s first commercial wave ocean generation. In fact, Japan is 10 years behind from western countries in the development of wave power generation, though it started to work on wave power generation in the oil shock in 1975. However, Japan is moving now, even though very slowly.

A venture company from Kobe University conducted the substantiative experiment of wave power generation offshore Wakayama Prefecture. Circular discs rotate by the force of waves and run the generator to generate electricity when they get back to the original position. The research team confirmed that this generator has the maximum generation capacity of 50 kW with higher generation efficiency. Tokyo University and Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding will start the substantiative experiment of wave power generation offshore the Izu Island chain starting in 2014. They have already confirmed that they can get more than 15 kW for every 1 m width of a wave. They plan to employ a buoy type generator with a generation capacity of 80 kW and confirm whether or not they can get a generation cost of about 40 yen per KW.

The project team established by the Tokyo metropolitan government and Tokyo University estimates that ocean wind generation and wave power generation combined will have a generation capacity of 20-30 million kW that is equivalent to the power generated by 20-30 nuclear power generators. It suggested to the Japanese government that the nation should boost up the capacity of ocean energy to 1 million kW by 2020.

Responding to the above activities, the Japanese government launched the 5-year ocean energy research and development project with a budget of 1 billion yen, and will recruit private companies shortly. The project aims to develop the technology that realizes a generation cost of about 20 yen per kW by 2020.

Despite the fact that Japan is surrounded by the sea, the Japanese government was not fast enough to stimulate the development of generation technology that uses wave, temperature difference of seawater, and tidal currents. Japan is about to come to the surface again the in the field of ocean energy development again considering that a bipartisan commission formed by Diet members submitted an urgent proposal recently.

No. 71: Prospect of natural energy in Japan – Geothermal generation (July 1, 2011)

Japan is a country of volcanoes. It has the world’s third largest geothermal resources following Indonesia and the U.S., and it has excellent technology for geothermal generation because it has 70% share in the geothermal generation turbine market. If Japan can use all its geothermal resources for generation, it will have a generation capacity close to 24 million kW that is equivalent to the same output by 23 nuclear plants. Nonetheless, Japan’s current geothermal capacity stays at 0.5 million kW which is the 8th largest in the world. Why? The answer is simple. Nearly 80% of geothermal energy sources are located inside national parks.

In 1972, two Japanese government agencies concerned reached an agreement not to promote the development of geothermal energy sources inside national parks for the time being. The phrase of “for the time being” means 40 years for Japanese government agencies. The environment Agency, one of the two agencies, decided to deregulate the development inside the national parks last June. It allowed developers to dig a hole outside of a national park toward inside it at an angle. Tohoku Electric Power started a project to dig a hole in this way at its Sumikawa Geothermal Power Plant in Akita Prefecture. If you dig a hole outside the national park at an angle toward inside it for 2.5 km, you can get inside the national park in about 100-200 m to reach a heat source. The heat source inside is higher than 300 degrees C that is enough for a highly efficient heat source.

According to the Environment Agency, possible thermal generation capacity from outside heat sources alone is 2.2 million kW, but it will increase to 6.4 million kW if digging at an angle toward inside is allowed for a distance less than 1.5 km. If the distance is doubled, it will be 10.3 million kW that is equivalent to the power generated by 10 nuclear power plants, and 43% of Japan’s total heat sources for geothermal generation can be utilized.

Hot springs generation is scheduled to be made practicable pretty soon. Geothermal Energy Research & Development will start the substantiative experiment in a hot spring coming November. The system heats ammonia water using hot spring water and runs the turbine using the resulting steam. A system of hot springs generation with a generation capacity of 50 kW can secure the same output by the photovoltaic generation of 100 households.

A high operating rate also characterizes geothermal generation. Photovoltaic generation has an operating rate of 12% and wind generation 20%, but geothermal generation has an operating rate of more than 90%. However, the demonstration equipment for hot springs generation is 100 million yen. As always, cost is the greatest obstacle for the spread.

No. 70: Prospect of natural energy in Japan – Photovoltaic generation (June 30, 2011)

The revival of the nation’s subsidy system in 2009 stimulated the market of photovoltaic generation that had been stagnant after 2006. Domestic shipments in terms of generating capacity increased 70% over the previous year to about 1.1 million kW in 2010, exceeded 1 million kW for the first time. The government is discussing the system of purchasing all renewable energy, and this policy is expected to activate the business further should it be enacted.

The subsidy system plays the major role to spread photovoltaic generation because its generation cost is 37-46 yen per kW, higher than the generation cost of wind generation. However, the generation cost of photovoltaic generation has been decreasing worldwide because the bubble burst of the photovoltaic cell business in Spain and because increasing presence of new photovoltaic cell makers from the U.S. and China that are increasing sales by virtue of mass production and competitive prices. The grid parity – the point at which alternative means of generating electricity is at least as cheap as grid power – becomes more likely thanks to the decreasing generation cost. According to European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), South Europe blessed with sunshine is nearing the grid parity.

Home electric utility rate is 23 yen per kW in Japan, and this is the target of photovoltaic generation for the time being. Japanese makers of photovoltaic cells are competing with foreign makers by increasing the conversion efficiency with such technology as monocrystalline silicon, multicrystalline silicon, thin silicon, and copper indium gallium DiSelenide (CIGS). In fact, Japanese makers are the front runners in the performance competition. In the immediate future, they have to achieve an electric utility rate less than the industrial rate of 14 yen per kW. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) plans to achieve the 14 yen per kW in 2020 and 7 yen per KW in 2030.

In June this year, NEDO set up a joint project with EPIA to develop the concentrator photovoltaic system (CPV) with a conversion efficiency of more than 45%. The leading Japanese researcher of this project insists that the progress of CPV makes it possible to reduce the generating cost to less than 8 yen per kW before 2030. The current administration plans to reduce the generation cost of photovoltaic generation to one third in 2020 and one sixth in 2030.

No. 69: Prospect of natural energy in Japan – Offshore wind generation (June 24, 2011)

Offshore of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan’s first full-scale offshore wind generation plant started operation in June 2010. It has a generation capacity of 14,000 kW. Managed by Window Power Ibaraki, it currently supplies electricity to 7,000 households. The company plans to build another 8 offshore windmills in 2012, and is having negotiations with the government to build about 100 offshore windmills in the sea between 500 m to 4 km offshore. The ambitious plan will realize a large-scale ocean wind generation plant with a generation capacity of 500,000-1,000,000 kW.

This plan attracts wind attention because the future of Japan’s wind generation depends on it. Onshore wind generation does not have a bright future as it did in the past because the discontinuance of subsidy system and the difficulty to find suitable locations. In contrast, offshore wind generation has a rather bright future. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) estimates that the resource amount for offshore wind generation in the sea deeper than 200 m within 30 km from the revetment is about 1.2 billion kW. If a wind generation plant is running at 30% of the capacity and a nuclear power plant is running at 80% of the capacity, the 1,200 million kW is equivalent to the power generated by 450 nuclear power plants with a generation capacity of 1 million kW.

European countries like Great Britain and Denmark place importance on offshore wind generation, and about 10% of 9 million kW generated by wind generation comes from offshore wind generation. In Japan, various measures in designing are inevitable because Japan has severe natural conditions including earthquakes and tsunami. Japan Society of Civil Engineers set up an organization to study design guidelines for offshore wind generation and will publish the research report in two years.

The generation cost of onshore wind generation is about 10 yen per kW. It is higher than the generation cost of nuclear generation (5-7 yen), but it considerable lower than that of photovoltaic generation (40-50 yen). It costs more to build an offshore wind generation plant and onshore wind generation plant, but the former is far more stable and higher in performance than the latter because wind is strong and wind direction is stable. The big problems are with the acquisition of locations and indemnification for fishers. A Tokyo University professor suggests political leadership to spread offshore wind generation.

No. 68: Is wind power generation promising in Japan? Not really (June 17, 2011)

The pacing of constructing wind power plants is decelerating in Japan. According to the Japan Wind Generation Association, the wind power plants that started to operate in 2010 have a combined generation capacity of 260,000 kW, less than the capacity of the previous year for the first time in the past three years. The accident in the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is expected to stimulate the move for more wind power plants, but the reality is different. The new generation capacity of 2010 decreased 13% from the previous year and 35% from 2006 when the construction of wind power plants peaked. There are several reasons for the decelerated pace. The government traditionally subsidized one third of the construction cost of a wind power plant, but it discontinued the subsidy starting 2010. In addition, the bill that obliges electric power companies to purchase renewable energy was submitted to the Diet, but prospects do not look brighter.

Wind generation power companies are mostly not good in financial condition. Japan Wind Development sold its Wakayama Plant to a subsidiary of Osaka Gas. Japan New Energy Explore (JANEX) operating wind power plants in Kyushu decided to put off the plan to construct new wind power plants. Japan has a total wind generation capacity of 2,440,000 kW. The Japan Wind Generation Association projects to increase Japan’s capacity to 1,100,000 kW by 2020. Today, however, winder generation capacity is currently equivalent only to two nuclear power plants.