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Japans government plans with 3,880 MW of geothermal power by 2030

Japans government plans with 3,880 MW of geothermal power by 2030 Worker at Japanese geothermal power plant, snapshot from AlJazeera Video (source: AlJazeera/ YouTube)
Alexander Richter 3 Sep 2012

Japan plans to seven-fold its geothermal power generation capacity as part of a new strategy to replace all nuclear power generation in the country by 2030. The plan sees an increase from currently 530 MW of geothermal power generation capacity to 3,880 MW.

Just before the weekend, Japan’s Minister for the Environment, Goshi Hosona, released the government’s new energy strategy.

Under the new strategy the Japanese Government plans a six-fold boost to power generation capacity from renewable energy sources, that would enable the country to displace all nuclear power plants of the country.

Renewable energy sources that are part of the plan are offshore wind, geothermal, biomass and tidal power sources. Those resources represent today (at the end of 2010) about 2.96 GW of installed capacity but are planned to provide as much as 19.4 GW of installed capacity by 2030.

In its specific targets offshore wind is to provide 8.3 GW, geothermal 3.88 GW, 6 GW from biomass and 1.5 GW from tidal power.

In 2010, wind has an installed capacity of 30 MW, geothermal 530 MW, biomass 2,400 MW and tidal none.

While the Japanese government still sees nuclear providing from 15-25% of the country’s power supply by 2030, it studies options to cut this share to zero.

Floating offshore wind mills are described as being able to replace up to eight nuclear reactors. But then again wind is not baseload like nuclear and geothermal.

Source: Japan Times