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Kansai Electric Power Co (KEPCO) on Monday increased electricity rates for households. The rate will initially be hiked by 4.62% until Sept 31, and then go up to 8.36% from Oct 1.
KEPCO had applied to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to increase household power rates by an average 10.23%, but the ministry last month instructed the utility to lower the proposed hike as crude oil prices have fallen slightly.
KEPCO’s last household rate increase was in May 2013.
On April 30, KEPCO reported a group net loss of 148.38 billion yen for fiscal 2014 due to the cost of thermal power generation to replace nuclear power. The utility has submitted a request to the Nuclear Regulation Authority to extend the operational period of the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at its Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture.
All 48 of Japan's nuclear reactors were gradually taken offline after the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeast Japan following an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
The shutdown has forced nuclear operators to turn to more expensive fossil fuels to run power stations, pushing most of them into a sustained period of losses.
KEPCO, which raised prices by 14% in April for its corporate customers, serves Japan's second most important economic region, where companies including Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp are headquartered.
Japan has been importing record amounts of liquefied natural gas and coal to fill the gap for power generation. Imports of LNG and coal are expected to stay high unless Japan moves to start more than a few reactors, analysts have said.
© Japan Today
14 Comments
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SauloJpn
That is one industry that do not need to cut costs when they are in the red. They have the monopoly of electricity supply for the entire region. There is really nothing anyone can do to oppose this. If they want to raise your bill, they will raise your bill.
ifd66
Thankfully we have solar, and KEPCO who seem to openly oppose renewables, have to pay us a tidy sum each month :-) As far as they are concerned any move to renewables weakens thier monopoly position and thus their position to make rate hikes such as these.
inkochi
Maybe now more ex-ricefields of passed away farmers filled with solar panels round here.
How about rooftops of buildings in cities?
Or that no-brainer from long ago, geo-thermal, ...
nath
I just got free double glazed windows all around. Thank you noisy American jets. I am hoping to see a decrease in my electric bills.
Star-viking
ifd66
No, no - it's not KEPCO paying you - it's the people whose bills keep going up.
wtfjapan
I am hoping to see a decrease in my electric bills.** unfortunaelty as electricity bought from the power companies becomes less, due to solar etc, theyll just raise there rates to compensate. the only way to be truely free of them is to have at least 10,000kwh of solar cells all over your roof and enough batteries to store the energy for night. But the costs are still to high to be viable
Star-viking
zichi,
Really? Are you saying that KEPCO does not use money received from consumers to pay the FIT tarrifs?
Star-viking
zichi,
so basically, we are in agreement - FITs are being paid for by the customers.
Star-viking
Hi Zichi,
OK. That's over double the FY2014 cost to consumers.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20150324/410680/?ST=msbe
OK
Some maths: At the highest level, given your rates, at ¥158 billion per year, renewables production would be close to 3 TWh, at the lowest level 7 TWh.
Your link gives a 2010 value (obviously 2015 will be higher) of around 100 million kWh - 100 GWh - even with a quadrupling of that value it does not even reach the TWh range, so either the power companies are getting paid more for the RE, or something is off or not accounted for with your figures.
Not backed up by your figures, and not backed up by METI:
http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/energy_environment/renewable/pdf/summary201109.pdf
So, the customers are bearing the cost.