It is unclear whether Japan will be hit by significant power shortages this summer if it has no access to nuclear power, despite a steady drumbeat of warnings about power cuts from government and power industry officials.
It is unclear whether Japan will be hit by significant power shortages this summer if it has no access to nuclear power, despite a steady drumbeat of warnings about power cuts from government and power industry officials.
With the suspension for maintenance of Japan’s last operational nuclear power reactor at the Tomari nuclear plant in Hokkaido just four weeks away, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s administration is pushing hard for a restart of two suspended reactors at the Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
Forecasts of power shortages in the summer months, when electricity demand reaches its peak, have been at the forefront of the campaign.
Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), the Osaka-based operator of the Oi plant, has argued that power supply may fall 13.9 percent short of demand if no nuclear reactor is restarted before summer.
KEPCO has stated that this summer its power supply capacity will be down 5.5 gigawatts, or nearly 20 percent, year on year if none of the four nuclear reactors that were running last summer is back on line.
Similar peak power demand to last summer could, the utility says, cause a serious supply shortage and necessitate blackouts.
Only after the government's Energy and Environment Council releases this summer's national power supply and demand projections in late April or later, will the energy situation for the whole of Japan become clear.
Those figures rely on a compilation of supply capacity and demand data provided by power utilities to the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.
However, in the meantime, a look at past projections by KEPCO and other utilities reveals that their forecasts of shortages are not always accurate.
KEPCO also called for power saving efforts after projecting a power shortfall in February of around 10 percent across its service area. It turned out there was no power shortage.
Pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation produced 1.99 gigawatts more power than expected, and other power utilities provided over 0.5 gigawatt more excess power than expected to KEPCO when supplies were tightest.
Power saving efforts by corporate and household users also helped to curb peak power use.
Users in the service area of Kyushu Electric Power Co. were also asked to save power by 5 percent in the winter months. However, there was no shortage despite peak power demand that was over 5 percent higher than projected because of cold weather.
Six other power utilities, including Tokyo Electric Power Co., provided excess power to Kyushu Electric when it suffered a glitch at a major thermal power plant.
KEPCO could have access to extra supply this summer from thermal power generation, pumped-storage hydro power generation and supplies of excess power from other utilities.
It could ask Chubu Electric Power Co. and other utilities, which have a relatively large supply leeway, to provide it with power. Corporate and household users could also ramp up their power-saving efforts.
The 13.9-percent shortage projected by KEPCO, however, does not take these alternatives into account.