ID :
206308
Fri, 09/09/2011 - 18:09
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https://oananews.org//node/206308
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Japan ends limits on electricity usage
TOKYO, Sept. 9 Kyodo - Japan on Friday night ended months of government-mandated electricity-saving, imposed for the first time in 37 years to battle power supply constraints amid the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Industry minister Yoshio Hachiro, thanking companies and citizens for their cooperation in saving electricity this summer, said he intends to avoid issuing a similar order again this winter but asked people to continue efforts to cut down on the use of electricity.
''Thanks to the great cooperation of citizens, and small and large-lot business users in saving electricity, we were able to avoid a (power) crunch,'' Hachiro said at a press conference.
He said the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to complete its review of this summer's electricity supply-demand conditions by around October to make necessary preparations for the coming winter.
Under the government's mandatory power-saving order, issued July 1, large-lot users in the service areas of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tohoku Electric Power Co. were required to reduce electricity consumption by 15 percent from a year earlier during peak usage hours on weekdays.
Citizens nationwide and large-lot users in other areas were also asked to save electricity voluntarily.
During the period when the order was effective, a number of companies brought forward the start of the business day by one hour. The auto industry designated Thursdays and Fridays as factory closure days and instead operated their plants over the weekend to spread out electricity usage.
Some railway operators also reduced their services to save electricity to cope with power shortfalls amid the nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric's Fukushima Daiichi power plant triggered by the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Such power-saving efforts, together with a cooler-than-usual summer, led to a drop of more than 15 percent in power consumption in the two utilities' service areas, and prompted the government to lift the power-saving order earlier than scheduled.
Tokyo Electric President Toshio Nishizawa apologized for the inconvenience caused by the utility's electricity supply constraints and thanked the public for cooperating in saving power. ''We will continue doing our utmost to boost our supply capacity to ensure the stability of electricity supply,'' he said in a statement.
The government lifted the order for areas hit by the March disaster on Sept. 2, a week earlier than originally scheduled, and the lifting of the order for other areas was brought forward to Friday night from the originally planned Sept. 22.
But it remains uncertain whether utility companies will be able to meet electricity demand in the winter and next summer, with a number of nuclear power reactors remaining idled across Japan amid local reluctance to allow them to restart after they were suspended for regular checks in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.
Assuming that the reactors stay idled, the government estimates that the total supply capacity of the nine Japanese utility companies that operate nuclear plants will fall short of expected demand by 0.7 percent this winter. Only Okinawa Electric Power Co. has no nuclear plants.
Industry minister Yoshio Hachiro, thanking companies and citizens for their cooperation in saving electricity this summer, said he intends to avoid issuing a similar order again this winter but asked people to continue efforts to cut down on the use of electricity.
''Thanks to the great cooperation of citizens, and small and large-lot business users in saving electricity, we were able to avoid a (power) crunch,'' Hachiro said at a press conference.
He said the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to complete its review of this summer's electricity supply-demand conditions by around October to make necessary preparations for the coming winter.
Under the government's mandatory power-saving order, issued July 1, large-lot users in the service areas of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tohoku Electric Power Co. were required to reduce electricity consumption by 15 percent from a year earlier during peak usage hours on weekdays.
Citizens nationwide and large-lot users in other areas were also asked to save electricity voluntarily.
During the period when the order was effective, a number of companies brought forward the start of the business day by one hour. The auto industry designated Thursdays and Fridays as factory closure days and instead operated their plants over the weekend to spread out electricity usage.
Some railway operators also reduced their services to save electricity to cope with power shortfalls amid the nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric's Fukushima Daiichi power plant triggered by the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Such power-saving efforts, together with a cooler-than-usual summer, led to a drop of more than 15 percent in power consumption in the two utilities' service areas, and prompted the government to lift the power-saving order earlier than scheduled.
Tokyo Electric President Toshio Nishizawa apologized for the inconvenience caused by the utility's electricity supply constraints and thanked the public for cooperating in saving power. ''We will continue doing our utmost to boost our supply capacity to ensure the stability of electricity supply,'' he said in a statement.
The government lifted the order for areas hit by the March disaster on Sept. 2, a week earlier than originally scheduled, and the lifting of the order for other areas was brought forward to Friday night from the originally planned Sept. 22.
But it remains uncertain whether utility companies will be able to meet electricity demand in the winter and next summer, with a number of nuclear power reactors remaining idled across Japan amid local reluctance to allow them to restart after they were suspended for regular checks in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.
Assuming that the reactors stay idled, the government estimates that the total supply capacity of the nine Japanese utility companies that operate nuclear plants will fall short of expected demand by 0.7 percent this winter. Only Okinawa Electric Power Co. has no nuclear plants.
