Chubu Electric Power (Chuden, Headquarters: Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture), Hokuriku Electric Power (Rikuden, Headquarters: Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture), and Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO, Headquarters: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture) announced on March 12, 2020, that they had begun a joint wide-area supply and demand adjustment in order to improve the efficiency of their power transmission and distribution.

In order to supply electricity, the supply and demand for electricity needs to be balanced. However, power generation and demand may not always be balanced due to power supply loss or errors in demand forecasting. In the past, each utility company had to adjust the supply and demand within their service areas. However, the wide-area supply-demand adjustment allows the utility companies to cooperate in adjusting supply and demand, using the inter-regional interconnection lines connecting their service areas. The partnership helps the utility companies to reduce their operational costs.

The operation of a wide-area supply and demand adjustment is expected to expand as six more major utilities will participate in the plan. The additional six utilities are: Hokkaido Electric Power (HEPCO, Headquarters: Sapporo City, Hokkaido), Tohoku Electric Power (Tohoku, Headquarters: Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture), Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO, Headquarters: Tokyo), TEPCO Power Grid (Headquarters: Tokyo), Chugoku Electric Power (‎EnerGia, Headquarters: Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture), Shikoku Electric Power (Yonden, Headquarters: Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture), and Kyushu Electric Power (Kyuden, Headquarters: Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture).[1]

[1] http://www.rikuden.co.jp/press/attach/20031201.pdf

On December 26, 2019, Japan’s Strategic Policy Committee of the Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy released its interim report on Building Sustainable Power Systems. The interim report includes the Committee’s recommendations to rebuild Japan’s power systems and improve resilience.

Japan’s energy landscape is rapidly changing due: increasing resiliency needs; growing demand for decarbonization in response to the Paris Agreement; decentralization of networks through the introduction of renewable energy; and emerging new energy businesses that utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). The Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) has established the Building Sustainable Power Systems Subcommittee under the Strategic Policy Committee to develop policies and measures to adapt to these changes.

The subcommittee held four meetings in 2019 from November to December to discuss these issues and released its findings in the interim report. The report highlights the following: [1]

I. Strengthening stakeholder collaboration for faster disaster recovery: the subcommittee discussed the need for a disaster coordination plan to improve disaster response collaboration among utility companies to shorten the recovery period. The subcommittee also proposed the establishment of a cost sharing mechanism for disaster recovery.

II. Creating a resilient power network: Typhoon No. 15 (Faxai) caused serious damage to the power network. In order to mitigate power outages during large-scale disasters, the subcommittee discussed the need to replace aging equipment and improve the inter-regional interconnection of the distribution network for a robust and sustainable power system.

III. Promoting decentralized power system: Typhoon No. 15 highlighted the need to place distributed energy resources for remote and hard-to-reach areas in advance, in order to quickly recover from a disaster. The subcommittee emphasized the importance of promoting and investing in distributed energy resources in these areas to improve resiliency including microgrids, renewable energy, storage batteries, and electric vehicles.

[1] https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/committee/council/basic_policy_subcommittee/#system_kouchiku