development of electricity demand by sector

Under the Energy [R]evolution Scenario, electricity demand is expected to increase disproportionately, with households and services the main source of growing consumption (see Figure 18). With the exploitation of efficiency measures, however, an even higher increase can be avoided, leading to electricity demand of around 782 TWh/a in the year 2050. Compared to the Reference Scenario, efficiency measures avoid the generation of about 779 TWh/a.This reduction in energy demand can be achieved in particular by introducing highly efficient electronic devices using the best available technology in all demand sectors. Employment of solar architecture in both residential and commercial buildings will help to curb the growing demand for active air-conditioning.

The development of the electricity supply sector is characterised by a dynamically growing renewable energy market and an increasing share of renewable electricity.This will compensate for the significant reduction of coal and nuclear power plants. By 2050, 60% of the electricity produced in Japan will come from renewable energy sources. ‘New’ renewables – wind, biomass, geothermal and solar energy – will contribute 65% of this capacity.The following strategy paves the way for a future renewable energy supply:

• The reduction of coal and nuclear power plants and decreasing electricity demand will be compensated by bringing into operation new highly efficient gas-fired combined-cycle power plants, plus an increasing capacity of geothermal- and biomass power plants, as well as wind turbines. In the long term, geothermal, solar photovoltaic, biomass and wind will be the most important sources of electricity generation.
• PV, biomass and hydro energy will make substantial contributions to electricity production. In particular, as non-fluctuating renewable energy sources, geothermal and biomass will be important elements in the overall generation mix.
• Because of nature conservation concerns, the use of hydropower will only slightly increase from currently 30,000 MW to 44,000 MW – partly achieved by repowering and modernising existing hydropower stations.
• The installed capacity of renewable energy technologies will increase from the current 36 GW to 205 GW in 2050. Increasing renewable capacity by a factor of 5.7 within the next 42 years requires policy support and well-designed policy instruments. Because electricity demand will decrease relatively slowly, there will be a large demand for investment in new capacity over the next 20 years. As investment cycles in the power sector are long, decisions for restructuring the Japanese supply system need to be taken now.

To achieve an economically attractive growth in renewable energy sources, a balanced and timely mobilisation of all technologies is of great importance.This mobilisation depends on technical potentials, actual costs, cost reduction potentials and technological maturity. Figure 22 shows the complementary evolution of the different renewable technologies over time. Up to 2010, hydro-power and biomass will remain the main contributors. From 2020 onwards, the continually growing use of geothermal, solar photovoltaic and wind power will be complemented by electricity from ocean energy.