Wind power generation has been widely introduced in many parts of the world. Renewable energies including wind power are drawing more and more attention as measures to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gas, which is claimed to be the cause of global warming. Wind power plants are being built one after another in Europe, the US, China, etc.

In Japan, however, the introduction of wind power generation has suddenly lost steam. The operating capacity of new plants built in fiscal 2007 in Japan dropped to less than half, compared with the previous fiscal year. The Japanese government has set a goal of the accumulated total capacity of 3,000,000kW by fiscal 2010, but it is doubtful that this plan will succeed. What is preventing the smooth introduction of wind power generation in Japan?

Increasing construction cost, stricter quake-resistance standards

The Nikkei Electronics is presently running a campaign named "Environment and Energy Campaign" and intensively focuses on technologies and topics relating to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, etc. As part of the campaign, we published an article titled "Wind Power Generation is against a Strong Adverse Wind; Can Batteries be a Savior?" on the July 28th issue.

In regard to the obstacles against the construction of wind power generation plants in Japan, this article discusses two separate aspects, ie, technical issues and problems in business structure.

The article on the Nikkei Electronics especially focuses on the problem regarding the connectivity with the power system of power companies, which is one factor in the technical aspect. (The degree of connectivity is limited because wind power generation may be a variation factor for the frequency of power supply system.) The article also describes an effort to overcome the connectivity problem by utilizing secondary batteries.

Here, we would like to discuss the problems in business structure.

We asked wind power operators in Japan why the adoption of wind power generation has not been promoted. They pointed out the following three reasons: (1) the cost of constructing a wind power generation plant, (2) tightened quake-resistance standards and (3) the selling price of generated power.

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