The
world’s largest windmill for ocean generation with a capacity of 7,000 kW was
completed and opened to the public on June 22. It will be installed 20 km offshore
Fukushima Prefecture early July. It is for floating ocean generation and
scheduled to start generation early December. The blade is 167 m in diameter. It
is built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The windmill is 190 m high and weighs
1,500 tons. The height including the floating part is about 200 m.
The world's largest windmill is
opened to the public on June 22
Supported
by the government, companies and organization are energetically developing
renewable energy projects. The new windmill is the second windmill under the government’s
initiative. The first windmill was built by Hitachi. It has a capacity of 2,000
kW and started generation in November 2013. The third windmill is scheduled to
start generation within 2015.
The government
will increase the purchase price of electricity by wind generation next year to
correct overreliance on photovoltaic generation and foster off-shore wind generation.
The purchase price of off-shore wind generation will be 1.5 to 2.0 times higher
than that of electricity by land wind generation.
Purchase price of renewable energy per one kW/h
2013
2014 (Planned)
Photovoltaic generation
(Capacity more than 10 kW)
36 yen
30-35
yen
Wind generation
(Capacity more than 20 kW)
22 yen
Increase the purchase price of off-shore
wind generation to 30-50 yen
Medium-sized hydraulic generation
24-34 yen
Remain unchanged
Biomass generation
13-39 yen
Remain unchanged
Geothermal generation
26-40 yen
Remain unchanged
The government
introduced the system that asked electric power companies to purchase renewable
energy at a fixed price. Because it fixed the purchase price of electricity by
land wind generation at 22/kW, private companies hesitate to participate in the
off-shore wind generation business because off-shore wind generation costs more
than land wind generation to construct facilities. Unlike in Europe where wind
generation accounts for 20-30% in power generation, wind generation accounts
only for 0.5% in Japan. All renewable energies have a combined share of merely
1.6% in power generation. Marubeni plans to construct a large-scale off-shore
wind generation plant with a capacity of 240,000 kW that will start operation
in 2016. The total investment is estimated at 100 billion yen.
Marubeni plans to construct an off-shore wind generation plant
Business Trend: Five
leading solar cell producers including Sharp and Kyocera will increase solar
cell supply 40% over the previous year this year. On July 1 last year, Japan enacted the
system to purchase renewable energy, and demand for solar cell has been
increasing dramatically for the past one year. The market involved in
photovoltaic generation is estimated to increase 80% this year, and solar cell
producers cannot keep up with the rapidly increasing demand. The five leading
solar cell producers increased the total supply capacity 37% over the previous
year to about 4,700,000 kW in 2013, of which 90% will be shipped domestically.
Producer
Supply in kW
Increased rate over the previous year (%)
Sharp
1,600,000
21.3
Kyocera
1,000,000
25.0
Panasonic
675,000
25.0
Solar
Frontier
930,000
86.0
Mitsubishi
Electric
500,000
85.1
According
to a survey company in the U.S.,
Japanese photovoltaic generation related market will increase 77% over the
previous year to about 1,970 billion yen in 2013 and become the world’s largest
market, surpassing the Germany
and the U.S. Foreign suppliers are strengthening their sales activities in Japan. They had
23% share in 2012 ad plan to increase the share to over 30% in 2013. Because some
predict that the current booming solar cell business is going to create a
bubble, companies involved in the photovoltaic business are required to make a difficult
management decision.
Excessive
concentration on photovoltaic generation is observed in Japan mainly because purchase price of
photovoltaic generation in Japan
is about two times higher in Germany.
In fact, photovoltaic generation facilities account for 90% of all facilities
approved by the government for renewable energy generation. Initial investment
can be recouped in seven years, and generated electricity can be sold at the
same price for 20 years. Accordingly, large companies and investment funds
participated in the photovoltaic generation business one after another. As a
result, transmission networks suffer from capacity shortage in some areas. At
the same time, it is growing harder to secure land for photovoltaic generation
today.
The dye-sensitive solar cell of the world's highest efficiency
A huge off-shore
wind turbine to be installed 20 km offshore of Fukushima Prefecture
was released to the public. It is currently the largest wind turbine ever built
in Japan.
It is a floating type wind turbine built by Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding. It will start operation coming October. It is 106 m high above
the sea when it is installed. The windmill is 80 m in diameter, and the output
is 2,000 kW.
Building
this off-shore wind turbine is part of the government-funded substantiative
experiment, and a total of 11 organizations including universities, trading
companies, and shipbuilding companies participate in this project. The project
team is scheduled to build the world largest off-shore wind turbine that has an
output of 7,000 kW in 2014. Details of this project are available in English.
Japan's largest off-shore wind turbine is unveiled.
Kyocera got an order for the construction
of its photovoltaic generation system in 80 locations with total power
generation capacity of 30,000 kW from the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (JA Zennoh) for 8,500 million yen as the order for 2013. The
company plans to start the photovoltaic generation business at Zennoh’s 500
locations in alliance with Mitsubishi Corp. Kyocera will install 124,000 solar
panels and take care of everything involved in photovoltaic generation from
system design, construction, and maintenance.
Kyocera has competitive edge in the
technology to put various shapes of solar panels, such as trapezoidal and
rectangular ones, with no space between them. Because Zennoh’s plants and livestock
barns have various shapes of rooftops, they reportedly outdid Chinese makers
that competed with low-priced products. Kyocera plans to increase the production
of solar panels 25% over the previous year in 2013.
Fujifilm will put its newly-developed sheets
used for solar cells on the market. The sheet is the so-called back sheet
attached to the back of a solar cell to protect it from heat, humidity, and
ultraviolet. It oxidizes should it be exposed to air and water, but the company
increased the durability of the sheet by mixing special compound with polyethylene
terephthalate (PET) and applying its own unique technology to blow up film. The
new sheet has a life of 30 years, three times more durable than the existing
products on the market. It is priced at 20-30% higher than the standard back
sheet. According to European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPA), solar cells
with a total generation capacity of 31 million kW were introduced worldwide in
2012, making the cumulative output reach 100 kW. The introduction is expected
to increase 55% from 2012 to over 48 million kW in 2017.
Fujifilm had no way but to decrease the
share of film business considerably because of the growing popularity of
digital cameras. Actually, film sales account for less than 1% at present as
compared with about 20% in 2000. The company is busily occupied with launching
new business operations based on the technology it has accumulated. Late last
year, it started to ship the EXCLEAR designed for the touch panel of smartphones
and tablet PCs. In addition to higher precision, it can be mounted on the
next-generation display because it is bendable. Fujifilm is also marketing the label
to prevent counterfeiting that allows printed images and literal information to
be seen only through the special filter.
Fujifilm's technology to extract organic EL illumination light
Kobelco Eco-Solutions discovered a new species of euglena that has two times more fat
inside than euglena gracilis z stock, which is the currently most promising
euglena, and successfully cultured it in collaboration with the University of Tsukuba. The company confirmed that the new
euglena proliferates fast if it is cultured by effluent containing organic
substances and purifies water. It is supposed to have the same degree of combustibility
as coal. The company wishes to put a system from the culture of the new euglena
to the refinement of biofuel toward 2018.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries established a technology to produce bioethanol from rice
straws at a low cost. The new technology processes rice straws only by hot
water. Because it does not use sulfuric acid, it can reduce capital investment.
The new technology makes it possible to produce bioethanol at 40 yen per liter.
The company has been conducting the substantiative experiment for the past five
years.
