Companies in a race for renewable energy

A cap-and-trade emissions trading program the Tokyo metropolitan government will introduce in April is ushering in a new era for businesses.

A symbol of the efforts to be made in Tokyo can be found in the form of the Shin-Marunouchi Building just outside the JR Tokyo Station.

More than 20 million people visit the 38-story building over the course of a year, but beginning this spring, all of its electricity will be generated from wind, water and biomass.

The electricity generated by wind will come from the Shimokita Peninsula about 700 kilometers to the north.

On a hilly area that overlooks the nuclear fuel recycling facility at Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, stand 34 windmills with storage batteries.

While wind-power output often fluctuates due to weather conditions, the storage batteries will allow electricity to be sent through transmission lines of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tohoku Electric Power Co. to meet the demands at the Shin-Marunouchi Building.

The provision of so-called "fresh green power," being undertaken by Idemitsu Kosan Co., is the first case in which the end user directly receives renewable energy.

The metropolitan government's cap-and-trade program will cover about 1,400 of the largest company offices and factories in the capital.

Each emitter will have to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 6-8 percent over the coming five years.

If an emitter is unable to reduce its emissions, it can purchase emissions credits from other companies or use certified clean renewable energy sources.

At the Shin-Marunouchi Building, by using wind power from Aomori Prefecture, hydropower from Hokkaido and electricity generated through biomass in the Tohoku region, about 20,000 tons of emissions are expected to be reduced over the course of a year.

Overall emissions from the building are expected to be reduced by 60 to 70 percent.

The program has led to a rush to buy up the scarce renewable energy available in Japan.

Tokyo-based Energygreen Co. sells "green energy certificates," which cover the environmental value contained in electricity generated using solar, wind or low-head hydropower generation facilities.

Renewable energy sources are said to have environmental value besides the value of electricity because the generation helps to reduce emissions.

Green energy certificates contain carbon dioxide emissions for the amount of clean electricity generated that a purchaser can use to reduce its own emissions.

Energygreen entered into a contract with a hydropower generator in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture, for about 500,000 kilowatt-hours over a year in terms of environmental value. However, in March, a subsidiary of the Marubeni Corp. trading house won the contract with a higher price than the one offered by Energygreen.

Energygreen is involved in a separate battle with a company affiliated with a different trading company to purchase environmental value from a biomass generation project using sugar cane in the southwestern Nansei island chain that extends between Kyushu and Taiwan.

The offices and factories that will be subject to the Tokyo metropolitan government's new program are scrambling in their search for clean energy sources throughout Japan.

However, because clean energy was never a top policy priority in the past, there is obviously a limit to the number of such power sources.

Since the end of last year, Energygreen officials have been flooded with inquiries about the possibility of procuring green energy certificates for the equivalent of 1 million kilowatt-hours.

According to Hideaki Takemura, who heads Energygreen's business operations, "Although demand for such certificates will definitely increase in the future, we have not yet secured energy sources for after fiscal 2011."