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Fukishima Hot Spring Resort initiates development of small-scale power project

Fukishima Hot Spring Resort initiates development of small-scale power project Tsuchiyu Onsen, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan (source: flickr/ likeablerodent, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 24 Jan 2014

The Tsuchiyu hot spring resort in Fukushima Prefecture is planning a small-scale geothermal power project to generate green power and help in reviving tourism in the region.

Reported this morning from Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, the managers of a hot spring resort are starting a small-scale geothermal power generation project, as they announced at the Tsuchiyu resort in the city of Fukushima

The project plans to utilize water and steam from hot springs to generate power. The water – so the expectation – will be sufficiently hot to be reused for the hot spring bath operations and therefore address the fear of many that geothermal power projects could dry up hot springs.

The managers hope to generate about 2.8 million kWh of electricity, sufficient power to supply around 500 households. They hope to generate about $980,000 per year in electricity sales starting in July 2015.

Doing a bit of back calculation, the size of the plant seems to be in the range of 300-400 KW in installed capacity or around 0.3-0.4 MW, so rather small in scale. Electricity sales are estimated at around $0.35/ kWh in those estimates.

The region of Fukushima and the Tsuchiyu resort have lost a lot of visitors since the Fukushima nuclear incident following the devastating Tsunami of three years ago.

There is the general hope that projects like this will bring visitors back to the region, showing that hot springs can generate clean power and help revive the community.  Overall, the project has attracted some great interest.

Sourcer: NHK World