-In a significant first for Japan, Okinawa Electric Power Co. has begun operating a smart grid to control the supply of renewable-energy-derived electricity for the 55,000-strong population of the remote Okinawa Prefecture island Miyako-jima.
- Okinawa Electric operates a large solar power facility.
The launch on the island is important because it marks the nation's first autonomous system of smart-grid infrastructure that uses massive storage batteries to stably supply electricity by offsetting wild fluctuations in the production of solar and wind power.
The infrastructure Okinawa Electric is operating links the existing power grid to a 4mw solar power plant and a sodium sulfur (NaS) battery complex capable of storing 4mw of power. Some lithium ion batteries have also been installed.
The utility spent 6.15 billion yen on the infrastructure, two-thirds of which was subsidized by the central government.
Toshiba Corp. manufactured the load-leveling control system and other major components of the grid. The storage batteries were supplied by NGK Insulators Ltd.
In addition to controlling the supply of power to the grid from the new solar power plant, the system also controls power from existing 4.2mw wind farms situated on Miyako-jima.
Up until now, Okinawa Electric has leveled the load to the grid from the wind farms by increasing and decreasing the fuel burned in a thermal power plant. By switching to the use of storage batteries and other smart-grid technologies, the company will be able to increase its use of renewable energy resources on the island without increased dependence on the thermal power plant.
The government plans to subsidize the installation of solar power systems in Japan and achieve a more than 10-fold increase in generation capacity to 28,000mw in 2020. Smart-grid technologies are essential if this renewable-energy-derived electricity is to be supplied in a stable way to the national power grid.
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