First geothermal project in national park planned at Fukushima
Private Onsen in Fukushima, Japan (source: flickr/ micamica, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
17 Jul 2012
The first geothermal power plant project in a national park is announced to be built at the Tsuchiyo Onsen hot spring resort in Fukushima city in Japan.
Reported last week, the Tsuchiyo Onsen hot spring resort in the city of Fukushima in Japan is the first geothermal project planned in a national park in the country.
After the government changed regulations, development and operation of a plant in a national park is allowed. It is expected that binary technology will be used to utilize a lower heat resource for power generation. Binary technology would also allow to utilize the water from the hot springs in the area without the need for drilling of new wells.
There are though larger-scale projects, which are expected to drill wells within the boundaries of national parks in Japan.
The Tsuchiyu project is expected to start with an installed capacity of 500 kW in two locations in proximity to the natural hot springs, but an extension to 1 MW is expected.
The power will be sold to Tohoku Electric Power at the recently announced feed-in-tariff of 42 yen/ kWh ($0.53/ kWh).
The planned project is to help revive tourism in the region, which has declined sharply since the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year. Among others the resort plans to use generated power to “fuel” electric buses.
Source: Power Engineering
