Electricity costs, Japan

Many further solar energy developments and demonstrations took place m the first half of the twentieth century. However, only one solar technology survived the commercial competition with cheap fossil fuels. That exception was solar water heaters that were widely used in Japan, Israel, Australia and Florida, where electricity was expensive and before low-cost natural gas became available. 

At this moment, the price of the used granular PCM exceeds 10 EURO/kg due to the test production stage. Our calculation showed the cost payback time can be less than 10 years when the PCM cost would be reduced to 4 EURO/kg under the electrical utility rate condition in Japan. Further cost reduction will be needed to promote the actual system. In addition we have to care of flammability of paraffin wax as PCM in use of inside the buildings. Fortunately, PCM is placed under the OA floor board made of fireproof cement-mortal and above the concrete slab in this system. It may not have any problems under the Fire Defense Law in Japan. However, further development of noninflammable PCM granules, for example micro encapsulation of mixture of inorganic and organic PCM, is required. 

Up front capital costs are a critical issue, particularly in our emerging deregulated electricity sector. In Japan, TEPCO reduced the construction time on its newest Advanced Boiling Water Reactor - Unit 7 of the Kashiwazaki Kaariwa Nuclear Power Station - to 51 months. 

Today s rapidly increasing activities on hydrogen focus mostly on vehicle applications and less on stationary applications. For fuel cells, stationary applications are also relevant, but natural gas will be the dominant fuel here. The dominance of the transport sector is also reflected in the hydrogen roadmaps developed, among others, in the EU, the USA, Japan, or at an international level. Whereas in the beginning, onsite or decentralised production options based on fossil fuels or electricity are seen as the major option for hydrogen production, later on central production options will dominate the market. Here, several options could play a role, from coal, with carbon capture and sequestration, through natural gas and renewables (wind, biomass) to nuclear. A C02-free or lean vision can be identified in every roadmap. The cost... 

To date, large-scale applications of fuel cells have been limited because of cost, although the Tokyo Electric Power Company in Japan is now operating an... 

FET type humidity sensor. Although sensors based on a field-effect transistor (FET) appear to hold promise as a small and low-cost intelligent sensor, relatively few people have been engaged in the research on FET type sensors in Japan. In this respect, it is remarkable that a FET type humidity sensor was developed recently by Hijikigawa of Sharp Corp (9). The sensor is also worth notice as a new type of humidity sensor, which utilizes changes in electric capacitance of humidity sensitive membrane interposed between double gate electrodes. 

American Electric Power is installing a 6 mW wind farm with battery storage for 27 million, or at a unit cost of 4,500/kW, using NGK Insulator s sodium-sulfur batteries made in Japan. The rationale for the installation is that although the wind turbines operate mostly at night when the value of electricity is low, by storing the electricity generated until the next peak period, its value is much increased. 

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