Summary of Atsushi Murakami's Osaka lecture on October 18, 2016

Summary of Atsushi Murakami's Osaka lecture on October 18, 2016
Kazuya Matsuo October 2016, 10 (Wednesday)
80% of Germans aged 14-22 want renewable energy and energy conservation, and there is a lot of education on this topic.
35% of solar and wind power generation is owned by citizens, 11% by farmers, and 14% by local communities, totaling 60% owned by local stakeholders. As a result, installation methods that unnecessarily damage the landscape are unlikely to be used. Also, since it is the source of their profits, complaints are rare. In Japan, most are funded by big capital in Tokyo.
*Most people in Japan think that natural energy is growing in the EU only to reduce CO2 emissions, but that's not all. Rather, a bigger reason is that it allows money and people to circulate within their own region. For example, if thermal power generation is XNUMX yen/kWh and onshore wind power is XNUMX yen/kWh (a reasonable assumption), in Japan, the media and economic commentators tend to say that "if we use such expensive things, the country and companies will perish." However, in reality, about half of the thermal power generation, XNUMX yen, escapes overseas. The remaining XNUMX yen also goes only to major power companies. Not a single yen of money remains in the local area. However, in the case of locally owned wind power generation, both money and jobs are brought to the local area. Since there is no money going overseas, there is no trade deficit and it is perfect in terms of energy security. It is because of these various benefits that each country is desperately working on it.
The three pillars of energy conservation are as follows:
1. Renewable energy sources
2. 80% of cars to be electric vehicles by 2030
3. High insulation of the entire building
The above are items that can be steadily increased little by little every year. If we improve by 2.1% every year, the effect of compound interest will enable us to achieve our goal by 2050. And in reality, we are moving steadily at that pace.
Completely different from Japan, solar power and wind power are considered to be the primary sources of electricity. Next, the required power at that point is calculated (predicted). This is called the residual demand (required power amount minus power generation from renewable energy). This "residual demand" is first supplemented with biomass. If there is still a shortfall, it is supplemented with thermal power.
There are a few days a year when the wind is strong and residual demand is negative. At those times, your electricity bill may even be negative. This means that you get paid for using electricity. If it is cheaper to do so than installing storage batteries, then it is considered economically rational. On the other hand, there are also a few days a year when residual demand is extremely high (days when a large amount of thermal power is required). In Japan, we consider the capacity of storage batteries and thermal power plants according to these peaks. This leads to overcapacity and extremely high costs. In Germany, it is considered much more economical to encourage peak cutting by asking people to conserve electricity on these few days.
As solar and wind power generation increases, the amount of power generated at peak times will far exceed demand. To make the most of this power, it is essential to promote heat pumps and electric vehicles.
The inverse correlation between solar power generation and wind power generation is very well balanced. When the sun is shining, the wind is generally weak, and vice versa. They are mutually complementary. (I didn't mention this yesterday, but it seems that a particularly good balance is about 60% to 70% wind power and 30% to 40% solar power.)
In Japan, where the renewable energy ratio is less than 30%, the priority is to promote its use, so FIT (Feed-in Tariff) is appropriate. However, once it exceeds 25%, this system is no longer appropriate. Therefore, Germany is moving to a system called FIP (Feed-in Premium). This system does not purchase electricity at a fixed price. It determines the price of electricity from renewable energy, which is prone to fluctuations, in the spot market. This makes it cheaper when the amount of electricity generated is high and more expensive when it is low. FIP is a system in which a premium (difference) is paid on the average of the fluctuating prices. It is a very difficult concept, but with this system, people will use storage batteries to make profits by purchasing electricity at low times and selling it at high times. This type of market behavior is expected to have the effect of adjusting supply and demand.
Sector coupling refers to the use of IoT technology to achieve overall optimization in the three fields of electricity, transportation, and heat. In Germany, sector coupling has recently been receiving a great deal of attention among scholars.
DSM (Demand Site Management) is developing. The home storage battery market has been dominated by the venture company Sonnet. Although it has only been in business for a few years, it already has 400 employees. The best-selling product is a storage battery with a capacity of about XNUMX to XNUMX kWh. It is equipped with IoT technology, and uses an algorithm to predict weather forecasts and power consumption. The company's storage batteries across the country communicate with each other. As a result, it has succeeded in leveling out the regional fluctuations of cloudy and sunny days. By doing so, it has succeeded in raising the self-consumption rate to XNUMX to XNUMX%. In the EU, where purchase prices are low, it is more profitable to consume surplus electricity for oneself than to sell it, so raising the self-consumption rate is a very important issue. Based on this logic, it seems that the more sales there are, the greater the leveling effect will be. If this happens, the dominant company will become even stronger.
Wind and solar power generation are being securitized and are beginning to be included as part of portfolios.