The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy recently announced the electricity supply and demand outlook for this year. It could barely secure electricity in the summer, but the winter season would be the most difficult situation in the last few years, and stressed the possibility of a power outage. The power supply crisis in Japan has become a reality. (Photo quoted from Yahoo’s image)
There is the reserve supply ratio as a barometer related to electricity demand. The minimum required ratio is 3% when demand peaks. The outlook for this year is 3.7% in areas except for Hokkaido and Okinawa, and they anticipate a crisis situation.
Especially in the Tokyo area, the reserve supply ratio is expected to be minus 0.2%, which is quite severe. It is 8 to 10% as a guideline for stable supply.
Why is it a crisis forecast? In addition to the fact that solar power generation, which is affected by the weather, cannot be expected as the background for the decline in reserve margin, the movement of decarbonization is that thermal power plants are being suspended or abolished one after another, and the restart of nuclear power plants is not progressing as expected.
In fact, the power crisis became a reality in January this year. A large cold wave struck the Japanese archipelago, and demand for heating surged. The supply and demand of electricity became tight, and the price of electricity soared.
At Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc., there was a day when the usage rate in the power area, which is the ratio of demand to supply, reached 99%, and there were a series of flexible instructions to transmit power from other areas to areas where power demand could not keep up, leading to great confusion.
On the other hand, the wholesale price of electricity has soared due to supply shortage. It put pressure on the management of new electric power companies that do not own their own power plants and trade in the wholesale electric power market.
Due to the rapid increase in heating demand by the great cold wave, the supply could not keep up due to the shortage of liquefied natural gas (LNG) inventory, which is the fuel for thermal power generation.
According to the "Comprehensive Energy Statistics" of the Resources and Energy Agency, the ratio of primary energy supply in Japan in FY2019 will be coal (25.3%), oil (37.1%), natural gas (22.4%), natural energy (9.4%), nuclear power (2.8%), unused energy (3.0%).
Hiroshi Kajiyama, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, said at the press meeting in Tokyo last weekend that he instructed the officer at the METI to immediately consider measures to prevent an unexpected situation during this year's electricity demand season (summer / winter).
There is a view that the top of the energy policy aimed to call on the people to save electricity by communicating a sense of crisis, but there were various opinions such as the intention to promote the restart of nuclear power generation by fueling the sense of crisis.
If the curse of decarbonization interferes with power supply, it is difficult to know what carbon neutral is for. If the supply system becomes unstable, there will be a delay in promoting the development of electric vehicles (EVs) that consume large amounts of electricity.
As the power supply crisis becomes a reality in Japan, If we rush to raise the ratio of renewable energy such as solar power, wind power, and biomass, it might be putting the cart before the horse.
Naoya Abe
Tokyo bureau chief at Capitol Intelligence Group (Washington D.C.)
Former correspondent at Bloomberg News
