Green Electricity in Japan
I am somewhat worried about the environment. But at the same time, it is such a big issue. Is there much we can do about it as individuals?
Perhaps not. But surely it is better to do small things than to do nothing. A bit like the starfish story.
One thing we can do that is fairly painless is to change our electricity provider to one that uses more renewable energy. This is possible because the electricity provider market in Japan was liberalized in 2016. I had a look at changing providers shortly afterwards but gave up. Then GREENa popped up on my radar, but they weren’t available in Tohoku.
Finally last year I was able to sign up for GREENa. Our service started in January 2019, and I’ve now had three months of getting my (green) electricity from GREENa.
What is GREENa?
GREENa is an electricity provider that buys electricity from small-scale producers (solar, wind, biomass) and sells it to consumers. This is possible thanks to the liberalization (自由化) of the electricity markets in Japan that happened in 2016.
Signing Up
Signing up is very easy. You do it via the website using a simple form, and the whole thing took about five minutes. If you already have a smart meter (most places do) your service will start about a month later. If not, you will have to have your meter replaced (I believe this is free) and then your service will start after that. Our meter did not need replacing.
Price
So far, based on three months of use, GREENa’s prices are slightly higher (about 3.5%) than last year’s bills from our previous provider Tohoku Electric Company. This may be because electricity prices are higher this year, or because GREENa is more expensive.
I am happy to pay a premium for renewable electricity though, both because I feel it is desirable and because the more people do this the more commercial pressure there will be to move away from fossil fuels.
So how is it?
Well, so far I quite like the service. Signing up took about five minutes, and then you don’t have to do anything. GREENa sends you an email once a month telling you to log into your account to see this month’s bill. You can see all your bills going back too, which is useful.
The price seems to be similar or maybe slightly more expensive than a regional utility, but there is not much difference and I definitely think it is worth it.
You can pay by credit card or automatic bank withdrawal.
There does not seem to be any kind of contract lock in, and if you want to change providers again you just apply to your new provider and they will take care of cancelling your GREENa contract.
I’ve been using tepco’s aqua energy 100 ( http://www.tepco.co.jp/ep/eco/ ) for a while now. It’s quite a bit more expensive but it’s slightly more convenient because my apartment still uses gas so I combine it with their gas plan.
I researched the exact same topic last month. It appears that only 3 companies are offering 100% renewable energy: GREENa, TEPCO and Shizen
I ended up signing with Shizen 自然電力 https://shizendenryoku.jp/
TEPCO has the advantage of also providing gas in one package but…TEPCO. Since Fukushima I do not want to give them a single yennie if I can avoid to.
Good stuff! Why did you end up choosing Shizen? How are you finding them so far?
(totally agree about TEPCO, by the way)
I chose Shizen because Next Energy (the parent company of Greena) is only an EPC company while Shizen is also a developer and an invester.
That means that Shizen is more likely to use my money to create new renewable projects as they are lower down the value chain.
A very interesting article and a direction I would love to go in (both towards sustainable energy and away from Tepco). However, ironically, neither Greena nor Shizen will buy back electricity generated from the solar panels on my roof. Even at this time of year, we are getting ¥2~3,000 a month, which helps towards the loan I had to get to get them up there.
If anybody knows of a similar company that would, please let me know.
@Steve: Have you looked at Trende (http://trende.jp)? I haven’t looked into it fully, but it looks like they’re into that, as well as other renewable sourcing.
Thanks David.
Had a look and although interesting, from what I can tell, it’ll end up adding quite a bit to my bill, plus I’ll probably have to fork out a few million for a lithium battery (can’t find anything on the site that makes this clear). One of the sites has a simulator, but doesn’t allow for solar panels.
The trend is definitely towards batteries and sharing with neighbours, and I believe the law will enforce this in the near future. Our solar panel company tried to sell us a battery, but we decided to wait for the prices to come down. We are getting a relatively good guaranteed price for our electricity from Tepco (which is a co-owner of Trende, along with Shell and the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority), and I can’t find any info on how or how much Trende will make up this.