Enthusiasm for renewable energy swelled after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Progress has been slow
expert, a restaurant owner, an agribusiness manager and a sake brewer, all from the afflicted prefecture, hatched a plan. Japan needed to generate more electricity from renewable sources, they believed, so they founded Aizu Electric Power Company to speed the transition. Yamada Jun, theand travelled to Germany to swot up on renewables. He spent two winters studying the effects of snowfall on solar panels.
The hoped-for transformation, however, has been “slow and almost invisible”, Mr Yamada laments. Renewable generation has grown from 10% of the power supply in 2010 to 17% in 2018, almost half of which comes from old hydropower schemes. Most nuclear plants, which provided more than a quarter of the country’s power before the disaster, have been shut down, at least for the time being .
Government policies also help stifle the growth of renewable energy. Since the end of the second world war, privately owned, vertically integrated regional utilities have dominated the electricity market. These ten behemoths provide stable power within their regions, but do little to co-ordinate supply and demand across their borders. As one official puts it, “Each company is like a separate country.
Critics say the steps have been too incremental and not radical enough. Utilities continue to make it time-consuming and costly for new entrants to get access to the grid, imposing rules that are “not fair for newcomers”, according to Takahashi Hiroshi of Tsuru University. Existing power plants are favoured over new facilities, and the share of renewables is limited, on the ground that their intermittency threatens the grid’s stability.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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