POWER June 2012 - 58

RESOURCE PLANNING
the [Yoshihiko] Noda administration came
to such a political judgment, " he said.
In the short term, it is almost certain that
utilities that have relied heavily on nuclear
power, like Kansai EPC and Tokyo EPC, will
strain to meet normal year demand peaks, especially
if, as in 2010, Japan has a hot summer
and cold winter (Figure 6). As it did in
the summer of 2011, following the quake, the
government may be compelled to force power
savings, invoking the Electricity Business
Act, Ogasawara said. And this would result,
as it did last summer, in some " prohibitively
costly and inefficient " measures.
If no nuclear plants are restarted this summer,
supply is expected to be 5.4% short
of demand on a kilowatt-hour basis, even
with energy-saving measures, IEEJ says in
a short-term outlook. Under this scenario,
coal use for power generation would pick up
16.2% compared with 2011, oil use by 8.3%,
and natural gas use by 9.7% (Figure 7).
Though thermal plants will likely fill the
nuclear gap, their prolonged and continuous
operation could mean increasing risks
of failure, while reactivated older thermal
plants will be unable to produce their full
nameplate output.
Then there is the issue of water, Ogasawara
said, the availability of which will
have a substantial impact on maximum supply
capacity.
At least for this summer, METI is discussing
alternative measures, such as allowing
flexible operation of regional interconnections,
reviewing methods of estimating peak
supply capacity of pumped hydropower and
solar photovoltaic (PV), applying tariffs dif6.
Desperate remedies. To meet summer
demand without nuclear reactors, TEPCO
has embarked upon urgent installation of three
new 334-MW gas turbines at its liquefied natural
gas-fired Chiba plant (shown here) and
three new 268-MW gas turbines at its oil-fired
Kashima plant by July 2012. The turbines will
be converted to combined cycle operation by
July 2014. Courtesy: TEPCO
ferentiated for day and night, or by time zone,
and promoting power saving through negative
tariffs for peak usage curtailment. Even
then, none of these efforts " is decisively effective, "
he added.
Pre-Disaster Energy Policy
Japan had established several laws, regulations,
and programs governing its energy sector in
response to the oil shocks of the 1970s, but it
wasn't until 2002 that the Japanese Diet-its
bicameral legislature composed of the popularly
elected lower House of Representatives and
upper House of Councilors-adopted the Basic
Act on Energy Policy. Though it set no specifics,
the act required government to formulate
a basic plan to promote energy supply and demand,
and it established three general goals for
Japan's energy policy-the three Es previously
mentioned: energy security, environmental sustainability,
and economic efficiency.
The first Basic Energy Plan developed in
October 2003 promoted nuclear power generation
to enhance efforts to secure a stable oil
supply and lead the formulation of an effective
international framework for enhancing
energy conservation and coping with climate
change. The commitment to climate change
was renewed in September 2009, when a
new government led by the Democratic Party
of Japan (DPJ) announced goals to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below the
1990 level by 2020 and submitted to the Diet
a detailed plan to achieve that goal.
As a result, the most recent Basic Energy
Plan, approved in 2010, foresaw a substantial
change to Japan's energy mix, calling
for shares of renewables and nuclear power
to more than double by 2030. Generation
from renewables was to increase from 9% in
2007 to 20%, while nuclear power generation
would increase from 26% in 2007 to about
53%-meaning Japan would need to build
nine more nuclear plants by 2020 and more
than 14 by 2030.
Japan had also planned to increase the
overall capacity factor of its nuclear sector,
from a low of 60% in 2007 to about 85% by
2020 and about 90% by 2030. To promote
nuclear generation, it planned to extend the
time between routine power plant inspections
and shorten shutdown times during inspections.
It also aimed to establish a complete
nuclear fuel cycle, including development of
" pluthermal " light-water reactors, which can
use plutonium fuel, and fast breeder reactors.
To increase its use of renewables, the government
had expected to expand a newly introduced
feed-in tariff system, which applies
to small-scale PV generation, to include wind,
geothermal, biomass, and small- to mediumscale
renewable technologies through subsidies,
tax reductions, and support for research
and development (R&D). Plans were also in
place to deregulate the domestic energy market
and prepare the power grid for intermittent
sources of supply.
Then the Fukushima disaster happened.
Back to the Drawing Board
The Basic Energy Plan, originally scheduled
for revision in 2013, is now to be completely
7. Short-term generation mix. Japan is facing the prospect of having no nuclear plants online
this summer. This graph shows the possible generation mix utilities may resort to in scenarios that
assume either most of the country's 50 reactors are back online or none are online. Note that 1 kCal10
= 11.6 GWh. Source: IEEJ
Coal
90,000
80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,0000
20,000
10,000
Crude oil
Fuel oil
Natural gas
Hydro
Nuclear
Renewables
2009
2010
2011
(forecast)
2012. Most
nuclear plants
online scenario
(forecast)
58
www.powermag.com
2012. No nuclear
plants online
scenario
(forecast)
POWER | June 2012
kCal10

http://www.powermag.com

POWER June 2012

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