Japan’s 2030 environmental goals and the preliminary energy mix proposal that came with them are pushing for an increase of solar PV generation to 15% of the nation’s power, versus 7% in the previous plan. In Japan, the bottleneck for developing mega-solar PV plants is securing the land. Developers have therefore been eyeing the agrivoltaic …
Continue reading “Overview of the Agrivoltaic Industry in Japan”
Japan’s interest in carbon capture, usage, and storage technology (CCUS) is fueled by its commitment to net carbon neutrality by 2050 and its desire to keep thermal power generation assets online to provide reliable baseload power. The Japanese government expects CCUS technology to be available for some applications as soon as 2030 and widely used …
Continue reading “CCUS, a Technological Gamble for Japan’s Decarbonization Goals”
In some of Japan’s T&D areas, the development and optimal use of renewable assets are constrained by a lack of grid capacity. But rather than forbidding the connection of newly developed assets, the TSOs have offered them non-firm transmission contracts. This allows the new power sources to connect to the grid and use capacity at …
Continue reading “Non-firm contracts and the reform of the curtailment priority order”
Efficient reform and decarbonization of the Japanese power system requires an increasing amount of data, tending toward a real-time measurement of power generation and consumption at each point of the grid. With this in mind, from April 1st, 2014, Japanese power companies were required by the government to begin deploying smart meters across Japan, following …
Continue reading “Smart Meters in Japan: A Cornerstone of the New Power System”
With an ever-increasing amount of non-dispatchable renewable power generation and targets for even more solar and wind to be added to the Japanese energy mix (the 6th basic energy plan targets 37% renewable energy), issues around grid balancing and renewable power availability are becoming ever more important. Recent curtailment of renewable power in Tohoku, Shikoku, …
Continue reading “The Upcoming Rise of Grid-Scale Batteries in Japan”
