Japan eyes making renewable energy main power source

April 28, 2018

Tokyo- The Japanese government plans to set a target of making renewable energy, including solar and wind power, the country's main power source, when it updates its basic energy plan as early as this summer, it was learned on Friday.

The industry ministry presented a draft outline of the revised energy plan at a meeting of a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy on the day. The outline refers to hydrogen as the "trump card" in the fight against global warming.

According to the outline, the government will maintain the current policy of promoting the restart of nuclear power reactors as a key base-load power source while reducing the country's reliance on nuclear energy as much as possible.

The government will also keep the target shares for nuclear and renewable energy in the country's total power generation in fiscal 2030 unchanged at 20-22 percent and 22-24 percent, respectively.

The renewed energy plan will also reflect a separate expert panel's recommendations, made earlier this month, on the country's long-term energy strategy, which covers the period until 2050.

The panel called for decarbonizing efforts, but refrained from suggesting numerical targets on the power source mix or its view on whether new nuclear plants should be built in the country.

At the subcommittee meeting on Friday, Issei Nishikawa, governor of the central Japan prefecture of Fukui, which hosts several nuclear plants, demanded that the government clarifies its stance on nuclear energy. Jiji Press