Japan 's Power Market Liberalisation

Currently, the energy (electricity generation) sector in Canada is facing a major crisis, which is the fear of running out of world’s natural resources to produce electricity. Even though the Canadian government is promoting renewable resources, it will take a long time to establish a network that is completely dependent on renewable resources. In the meantime, the population of Canada is growing drastically and cities such as Toronto is struggling to meet the rising demand for electricity due to urbanization.

Sustainable development in the energy sector continues to be a focal point on the international agenda. Goal 7 aims to bring universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services as well as increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix (United Nations, 2017). Energy is currently the dominant contributor to climate change, accounting for around 60 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past century, New Zealand’s energy needs has doubled every 22 years, increasing by over 2 percent each year (Energy Efficiency and Conservation

Ontario’s electricity industry timeline starts from 1906 after the establishment of Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario (HEPCO), a state-owned natural monopoly company. During 1970s to 1990s Ontario’s electricity planning was accomplished to reduce the Ontario Hydro’s debt (formerly HEPCO) which “did not pay the taxes nor intended to generate the profit” . The economic recession, and the inflation caused heavy cutting off the electricity demand which became the major setback and increasing cost of nuclear power plant had heavily increased the debt of Ontario hydro. In order to address the situation Ontario Hydro published a white paper to restructure Ontario Hydro. Ontario’s modern electricity

FirstEnergy engages in generation, transmission and distribution of electricity and “produces approximately 80 million megawatt-hours of electricity annually from a fleet of carbon-free nuclear, scrubbed coal, natural gas, and hydro plants” (see Appendix B) (About Us, 2017). FirstEnergy is currently implementing the first phase of its “Energizing the Future” transmission upgrade project. This long-term initiative will receive a $4.2 billion investment from 2014 to 2017 is designed to increase service reliability and accommodate increased future demands (Transmission Projects, 2015). This project includes “replacing existing equipment with advanced technologies designed to enhance system reliability, meeting projected load growth driven primarily by sale gas-related activity in our region, and reinforcing the system in light of power plant deactivations” (Transmission Projects, 2015).

Through the use of these limited resources, Japan has found other ways to create energy, one of which is the use of nuclear energy. In Japan, there are over 50 nuclear reactors which have the possibility of accounting for around 30% of Japan’s total energy. Because of the Fukushima accident, the amount of energy received through nuclear power is around 15%, from fewer amounts of reactors. Currently, there are 43 nuclear reactors that are operable and could be restarted. Because of the lack of natural resources, Japan requires about 90% of their energy to be imported, whether it is oil, or the uranium used in the nuclear power plants (“Nuclear Power in Japan”, n.d.). Through the use of nuclear energy as well as other means, the dependency on crude oil has dropped from around 77% to 42%. Using nuclear energy also greatly reduces the carbon dioxide emissions in Japan. Shown through the diagram portrayed on the right, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions for nuclear energy is lower than the emissions from environmentally friendly energy sources such as solar power and wind power. The only two portrayed on the graph as having lower carbon dioxide emissions are geothermal energy and hydroelectric energy that is small or medium sized. The use of nuclear energy has also helped Japan develop into a country in which they are not completely dependent on one source of energy, rather, they have many sources in which they pull

On March 28, 2017 President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) on “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.” This report is a partial overview of the EO with a consideration of the potential energy policy implications. While there are various programmes and policies affected by the EO, this report will look at the implementation of the policy objectives and have a focus on the reconsideration of the Clean Power Plan.

Alternative energy is not a real option in Japan right now, as even the most efficient forms of alternative energy and infrastructure are more expensive than simply burning oil and gas. Perhaps 30 years ago this was true, when wind turbines produced a lousy 75kw, but now the latest designs produce 3 to 5 MW at a cost of 8.8 cents/kWh to 13.7 cents/kWh. Nuclear power plants produce a lot more energy about a 1000 MW which is the equivalent of putting about 200 wind turbines in the sea off Japan's coast. Nuclear power costs about the same as renewable power, somewhere between 8.3 and 13.7 cents/kWh. These include the cost of setting up the plant and processing the uranium, many medias claim nuclear is cheaper by excluding these costs from the total. Though it is true that oil and gas are less expensive right now, coal runs 9.5 to 14.3 cents/kWh, and the price is rising rapidly, and will continue to rise in the long term.

As BlueWater Power merged, changes were also occurring in Ontario’s energy markets that caused some issues. The deregulation of the market opened up many opportunities for the company; however, it first had to overcome many obstacles. For example, BlueWater had to overcome the challenges associated with the large scale merger of six local utilities. Another issue was that they had very limited IT resources throughout the deregulation process. Finally, they had to upgrade their outdated system. These were the obstacles present throughout the merger during Ontario 's deregulation of energy markets.

Presently, Ontario has one of the highest electricity costs in North America (Hydro Quebec, 2016). This trend started when the government decided to transition into a modern, smart, and stable network. To achieve this, more generating plants were built to deliver more high-quality electricity to consumers. Following these changes, there was a shift towards using green energy, which involved development of solar panels and wind systems. Of course, these initiatives were based on anticipated load on the system which was expected to rise as per long-term planning. Following the recession in 2008, the industry was not as hot as it was forecasted, leading to decreased demand for electricity. Therefore, there were many contracts and projects that were in the process of approval and were voided by the government in response to the recession. Despite this, the

On March 11th of 2011, an earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused the Fukushima power plant to meltdown and release dangerous radiation into the environment and completely destroy the plant. Before this incident, public support for nuclear under Barack Obama, who was advocating increased production for nuclear power as it’s a clean energy, was at 71%.1 The most recent nuclear meltdown was the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, located in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, which was becoming a fading memory in the public’s mind. 2 In the aftermath of the Fukushima plant meltdown, the world became increasingly anxious about nuclear energy. Nonetheless, even with the renewed fears of nuclear power, production of new plants would continue in East Asia, India and the Middle East would

Energy runs the world. Everything uses energy. Whether it is something as simple as a person getting out of bed, or as complex as providing power to sustain an entire town, energy provides the source to get these things done. This is the reason that politicians and governments invest so much time creating energy plans and platforms, and travel to different energy conferences around the world. It is also the reason that when a country starts making changes to its energy plan it is big news. Japan now finds itself in this situation. With nuclear energy no longer the sure source of power that it was in the past Japan finds itself rethinking its energy plans. This however, is not an easy task. With a complicated energy past and a nation and

According to the case study written by Jurek, Bras, Guldberg, D’Arcy, Oh, and Biller, energy costs were steadily rising and were predicted to continue this trend going into the future. At the same time, utility companies were beginning to implement Smart Grid technologies to increase the efficiency of energy distribution. One resulting program to emerge from

Globalisation has had a profound impact on the Japanese economy influencing levels of international trade, business operations, financial flows, government policy, labour markets and even environment. This movement has been driven primarily by numerous TNCs, trade liberalization, and the deregulation of the financial system, and numerous strategies adopted by the Government and Economy, resulting in the creation of a 'new' Japan.

Seller and buyer negotiate for prices until bids are accepted and trade is accepted. Each auction are

Energy security is the concept that government should protect its citizens from crises that may arise between the availability and consumption of energy. Challenges are seen in the manipulation of power supplies because of uneven distribution to competition for energy resources.