Wind power capacity increased quickly in the past ten years in Japan, but most recently the sector has experienced a slowdown because of following four major reasons: extreme weather, the lack of a stable legal system, grid constraints and the stagnating economy.
Now it would be very difficult to exaggerate the scale of damage caused by the Japanese trifecta disaster of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear power plant crisis. In the middle of it all there’s one small bright spot: Japan’s wind turbines have survived it all unscathed, with operators being asked to step up operations where possible to help with electricity shortfalls.
As Kelly Rigg from Huffington Post say: “Colleagues and I have been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been no wind power facility damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami. Even the Kamisu semi-offshore wind farm, located about 300km from the epicentre of the quake, survived. Its anti-earthquake “battle proof design” came through with flying colours.”
That said, three of Japan’s eleven wind farms had been shut down due to grid failure. In total Japan has about 275 MW of wind power capacity, with 175 MW currently producing but keep going.
via [Treehugger]
