The director of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF), Mika Ohbayashi, said that the country's utility companies are still at the early stages of learning how to integrate renewable energy, given the difficulties they have had integrating it into Japan's electricity networks. It shows the big potential of renewables to provide a huge amount of electricity for the whole of Japan, if the regional interconnection will be advanced or the new technologies such as weather forecasting and market integration will be introduced,” Ohabayashi said. Ohbayashi said that surveys showed during this summer that solar energy only contributed towards 10% of the country's electricity during peak demand. "The government is working on a plan for introducing more renewables in the power grid and will also work with utilities to increase their use of solar," he said.
The director of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF), Mika Ohbayashi, said that the country's utility companies are still at the early stages of learning how to integrate renewable energy, given the difficulties they have had integrating it into Japan's electricity networks. Ohbayashi said that surveys showed during this summer that solar energy only contributed towards 10% of the country's electricity during peak demand. "The government is working on a plan for introducing more renewables in the power grid and will also work with utilities to increase their use of solar," he said.