Niigata city is a government ordinance-designated city in Japan, with a population of around 770,000 (as of 2023). The city is located at the estuary of the Shinano River (the longest river in Japan), and Lake Sakata (a wetland site of international importance, designated under the Ramsar Convention) within its boundaries. Fields of rice and crops account for more than 50% of the city’s jurisdictional area The population is falling in the city and energy consumption is expected to decrease accordingly. Nevertheless, the city’s renewable energy supply is still not enough to cover the electricity demand. The city encourages local and self-sufficient production and consumption of renewable energy, and has created more renewable energy facilities, as well as a scheme to purchase and use local renewable energy.
Niigata city owns three waste incineration facilities: Shinden cleaning center, Kameda cleaning center, and Yoroigata cleaning center. The average yearly amount of burned waste is 200,000 tons. The electricity generated by using the residual heat from waste incineration is considered low-CO2-emission energy, as household waste contains biomass. Initially, the incineration facilities sold the surplus electricity to electricity companies outside the city, because there was no business model to sell produced energy, nor mechanism for stakeholders to purchase it within the city.
Niigata city and the JFE Group, which is commissioned to administer and manage the facilities for 20 years until March 2032, started investigating a business model to use the surplus electricity produced by those facilities, and the Niigata Swan Energy Corporation (NSE) was established as a result. Niigata city, JFE engineering Co., and Daishi Hokuetsu Financial Group Inc. (a major financial institution in the region) invested in it.
The objective of NSE is to enhance the city’s decarbonization, as well as wider economic activities, by using local renewable energy. It is expected to promote renewable energy use and establish a self-sufficient supply and consumption scheme, so that it will eventually be the primary energy source in the Niigata area.
NSE purchases renewable energy in Niigata city, including electricity produced by waste incineration and solar power generation, and supplies it to local facilities. It contributes not only to reducing CO2 emissions, but also to generating economic benefits, thus creating a virtuous circle where the cost /resources for energy are recovered and flow within the region. In addition, NSE returns its profit to the city, creating a financial resource to further invest in the decarbonization of the region, such as expanding the installation of solar power generation facilities.
Currently, NSE supplies electricity to 676 city-owned facilities and 14 private institutions. Yearly consumption of electricity by all these facilities is 80,000MWh approximately (as of 2022), reducing roughly 25,000t of CO2, compared with the same amount of electricity provided by other power companies. Also, this scheme has reduced the city’s electricity cost by around 100 million yen.
Renewable energy accounted for 61%, and regionally produced electricity constituted 65%, of the total electricity NSE supplied in 2022. When the supply is insufficient, NSE procures electricity from the Japanese domestic electricity market. In the future, it is hoped that NSE will expand the renewable energy business and contribute to making renewable energy as the major power source in Niigata city.
NSE also runs an energy management business. For example, it installs solar power generation equipment on city-owned land and the rooftops of private companies in the city. The landowners and the facility owners can then purchase renewable energy at lower prices than the regular electricity rate. NSE has a business plan to install solar power equipment and storage batteries as a set in the future.
Niigata city continues its efforts to reduce energy consumption by installing energy-saving electricity products and by the performance improvement of architecture (“Zero Emission Building”). However, boosting the use of renewable energy is one of the key goals for achieving Niigata’s “2050 Zero-Carbon City” target and the city will continue expanding its local, self-sufficient renewable energy production and consumption in collaboration with NSE.
Niigata city began reporting to CDP when the city joined the GCoM, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. In the reporting process, one of the difficulties the city finds was modifying data they owned in order to respond to the CDP Cities questionnaire, because the city’s data is managed based on Japanese laws and environmental policies. On the other hand, the city has recognized a benefit in enriching the city’s knowledge on global trends and issues of environment by reporting to CDP.
Image credits: NiigataNoMachi, Niigata City, Creative Commons License Attribution 2.1 Japan, CC BY2.1 JP DEED: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.1/jp/deed.en