Comments on: 1.8 GW Of New Solar For Japan In Q2

By: Ronald Brakels

Ronald Brakels — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:40:00 +0000

No… There is no sanctuary.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/Loganlifeclock.jpg

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 03:52:00 +0000

They’ve installed different stuff. Some large lithium-ion, IIRC. I haven’t found a list of all the installations to date, but here’s something from 2009 showing their interest started earlier. In fact, I think they had lithium-ion storage on their grid back in the 1990s.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/japan-land-of-the-rising-grid-tied-battery

And here’s something about a couple of large scale installations underway. “World’s Biggest”
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/japanese_energy_companies_test_80mwh_of_large_scale_battery_storage_systems

By: MorinMoss

MorinMoss — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 03:41:00 +0000

Battery banks? Are they sodium-sulfur? I think it was TEPCO who developed those and pretty much all the expertise remains in Japan, which is a barrier to widespread adoption.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 01:03:00 +0000

Yeah, I was surprised the first time I stumbled over that number and checked it on a couple other sites.

Japan’s also been installing large battery banks on their grid, so I think they’re in good shape for getting a lot of renewables on their grids quickly. Plus the people of Japan seem to have a much better attitude about working together to get stuff done. People seemed to accept working with less AC and working in short sleeves much better than a lot of people in other countries would do.

By: MorinMoss

MorinMoss — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:44:00 +0000

I was almost certain that 25.5 GW was a typo until I verified it and found Japan has 25% of global pumped storage, a few points ahead of the USA.
That’s quite remarkable.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:43:00 +0000

¨¨Moving ahead with their offshore wind farms¨ is slowed down by the lack of much of a continental shelf on the Pacific side, and unsettled jurisdictional disputes combined with low population on the western side. Japanese firms are developing floating turbines, but it´s a stretch, and large-scale rollout must be years away.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:38:00 +0000

You can look up the numbers as easily as I can. There´s a lot of ¨buy Japanese¨ sentiment, so Sharp and Panasonic must be doing well. Also, with a climate like Germany´s, the Japanese like high efficiency mono panels, so Sunpower is also benefiting.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Perhaps you could get a larger battery implanted in your forearm….

By: Ronald Brakels

Ronald Brakels — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:58:00 +0000

I’m just looking into it now. It’s complicated by the fact that Japan was doing an impressive job of cutting emissions just before Fukushima making the sudden increase look more jarring. But Japan’s CO2 emissions at the moment should still be below what they were in 2004 or perhaps 2007. Unfortunately I’ll have to come back to this as I am running out of time just at the moment. (The LED embedded in my palm is flashing red. I hate it when that happens.)

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:56:00 +0000

A bunch. It will take solar, wind and geothermal along with increased efficiency. Not an overnight job.

By: StefanoR99

StefanoR99 — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:53:00 +0000

How many GW of Solar do they need to replace the downed nuclear power stations?

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:45:00 +0000

Please do. Some real world numbers would be interesting.

By: Ronald Brakels

Ronald Brakels — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:42:00 +0000

I did not take into account the lower efficiency of many peak plants that may be operating at higher rates than before, but CO2 emissions may still have risen by less than 5%. This is something I may look into further later.

By: Ronald Brakels

Ronald Brakels — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:38:00 +0000

Japan’s coal use has fallen since Fukushima. Part of the general world wide move away from coal. LPG use is up by about a quarter. Reports of fossil fuel use soaring may have come from people who saw that fuel oil use doubled without realizing or not caring that Japan never used that much fuel oil in the first place. Some confusion may also have resulted from Japan stockpiling fuel in order to replace stores that were run down in the wake of the disaster and to cushion their economy from any disruption in supply. I don’t have recent figures but CO2 emissions from Japan’s electricity sector should have increased by less than 5% as a result of the nuclear shutdown.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:06:00 +0000

Japan has 25.5 GW of pump-up hydro storage that they built for use with nuclear. Closing down their reactors frees up all that storage for use with solar and wind.

They are also moving ahead with their offshore wind farms.

Fossil fuel use up for a while, but seems like they’re moving quickly to renewables.

By: Shiggity

Shiggity — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 19:01:00 +0000

Which producers are getting what %’s of that business?