In our latest blog post, we take a closer look at the second round of offshore wind auctions, the GX Promotion Law that just passed the Lower House, updates on the Hydrogen Basic Strategy, and Japan’s largest battery storage facility starting up in Hokkaido as a demonstration project aimed at resolving the nation’s grid constraints. …
Continue reading “The latest News in the Japanese power market”
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”
In a country prone to natural disasters, one of the government’s preoccupations is to increase the resilience of the grid in case of natural disasters and other emergency situations. The goal is for local grid branches to be physically independent and autonomous from the transmission network in case of emergency and be able to prioritize …
Continue reading “The Emergence of Microgrid Development in Japan”
In our previous post, we covered the overall trends in renewable energy procurement in Japan as well as the key concepts one needs to understand before embarking on the low- to no-carbon emissions path. This article, on the other hand, looks at the practicalities of procuring renewable energy in Japan. It explores the main options …
Continue reading “Renewable Energy Procurement Options in Japan”
Recently, headlines covering Japan’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and major corporations pledging to power their businesses with renewable energy have become increasingly common in Japan. Most of the latter have been businesses consuming large amounts of power and so, for businesses using relatively modest amounts of power, some of the concepts behind …
Continue reading “Reducing Carbon Footprint in Japan: The Basics”
When trying to understand the state of the Japanese power market, it is necessary to understand the country’s deregulation process and systemic changes that took place after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. That’s why we’ve already covered the topic on this blog a couple of times in the past: Japan’s Deregulated Power …
