Business
trend
Two
government agencies, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan and the Ministry of the Environment, will jointly start the smart village
project in which renewable energy supplies power in rural area. Besides
utilizing agricultural water and thinned wood for power generation and heat
supply, the project facilitates the installment of equipment for photovoltaic
generation and wind generation in the fields and rice paddies that have been abandoned
and are no longer cultivated. The project aims to help the rural area realize self-sufficiency
of power.
The two
agencies will invite public participation for the substantiative experiment to test
the cost and combination of generation systems. They will select five locations
in the country and assist municipalities financially in their substantiative
experiments. They will screen the problems with distribution of power generated
by sunlight and water, cost of management, and adjustment of irrigation right
in using agricultural water. Rural areas have lots of idle lands for renewable
energy generation in addition to thinned wood processable to woody biomass.
Currently,
generation by renewable energy accounts for slightly above 1% of all power
generation if large-scale hydraulic generation is excluded. The government
wishes to increase the share to 3% in three years by utilizing small-scale
hydraulic generation and the fields and rice paddies that have been abandoned
and are no longer cultivated. For this purpose, it is critical to work out a
system that allows the rural area to consume power generated locally.
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