Nagoya City Begins Operations of Stand-alone Solar Power System

2013/11/22 15:39
Kenji Kaneko, Nikkei BP CleanTech Institute
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The government of Nagoya City installed about 868kW of solar panels on the final disposal site for general waste in Oshimizu, Narumi-chou, Midori Ward, Nagoya City, Japan, and started selling electricity generated with the panels Nov 1, 2013.

The government set up three 250kW PV inverters, one of which is capable of stand-alone operation. Even when electricity from the power grid is not available at the time of disaster, etc, the PV inverter can be manually switched to the stand-alone operation mode and supply electricity from eight 20A power outlets. Mobile rechargeable batteries can be charged by using the power outlets, and electric and plug-in-hybrid vehicles can be charged by using a rapid charger installed near the PV inverter.

The operator of the power generation business is the government of Nagoya City. But the power generation facilities, etc are owned by a leasing company, and the government pays a lease fee to the company every month.

The government expects sales of about ¥656,200,000 (approx US$6.5 million) over 20 years. And it will pay a lease fee of ¥546,840,000 (approx US$5.4 million, including lease fees for the solar power generation systems, five 2.5kWh portable lithium-ion rechargeable batteries and one unit of the Prius PHV) over 20 years. Therefore, the government expects to earn the difference between them.

The rechargeable batteries and PHV are deployed at the ward office of Midori Ward and will be used at the time of disaster. The leasing company is Daiwa Lease Co Ltd. The solar panels and PV inverters were provided by Sharp Corp and Nissin Electric Co Ltd, respectively.