Home ›› 10 Mar 2022 ›› Asia Biz
Solar farms along tsunami-ravaged coastlines, green energy "micro-grids" and the experimental production of non-polluting hydrogen: 11 years after its nuclear nightmare, Japan's Fukushima region is investing in a renewable future.
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake unleashed a deadly tsunami on northeastern Japan, triggering a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant and forcing mass evacuations over radiation fears.
One year later, Fukushima's regional government set a goal of meeting all its energy needs with renewable power by 2040, a policy intended to help residents "reclaim" the place they call home, officials say.
Substantial progress has been made, in part thanks to hefty financial support from the national government.
Renewables accounted for 43 percent of Fukushima's energy consumption in fiscal 2020, up from just 24 percent in 2011.
But obstacles remain, from the higher cost for consumers to lingering concern over contamination.
"A strong desire to never see a repeat of such an accident was the most important starting point" for the green energy drive, Noriaki Saito, energy director at the prefecture's planning department, told AFP.
A gleaming field of solar panels now lines a coastal stretch north of the stricken Fukushima plant, in a location once earmarked for the region's third nuclear power station, a project abandoned after the tsunami.
Power from the site, which was completed in 2020 and is as big as 25 football pitches, is used to make hydrogen -- a clean fuel when generated with renewable electricity, and one that Japan hopes will help it reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
Fuel produced at the "Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field" in Namie has so far been used for small-scale purposes including at the Tokyo Olympics last year, and to refill locally run fuel-cell cars.
"In the near future, much more renewable energy will come to the grid" in Japan, said Eiji Ohira of NEDO, the public research body managing the facility.
