Footnote
(Note1)Farm-based solar power generation facility is an initiative to share solar energy between agricultural production and power generation. In addition to income from crop sales, income from electricity sales and private use of generated electricity can be expected to further expand the scale of farm management and promote sixth industrialization by increasing farmers' income.
(Note2) Business continuity plan. A plan that defines the preparation activities that should be carried out under everyday circumstances and defines the methods and means for business continuity in cases of emergency, with the purpose to minimize damage to business assets and facilitate the continuation or early recovery of core businesses in the event of a natural disaster, large-scale fire, terrorist attack, or other emergency situation.
Installation of Solar Panels for Self-Consumption to Secure Power in Rural Areas in the Event of a Disaster
Chiba Ecological Energy Inc.
| Publication date | April 28, 2022 (Posted on April 17, 2023) |
|---|---|
| Sector | Life of Citizenry and Urban Life |
Company Overview
Chiba Ecological Energy Inc. is an environment/energy start-up company that started at Chiba University. As a specialist in energy and public policy, we support local communities×renewable energy×next-generation agriculture. In particular, we provide support based on our experience in operating our own farm-based solar power generation system and consulting services.
Climate Change Impacts
There is growing concern that natural disasters will become more severe due to climate change. For example, the entire community of Ohkido-cho, Midori-ku, Chiba City, where we are based, suffered an eight-day power outage due to damage from collapsed trees during the Boso Peninsula Typhoon in 2019. At the time, the solar power generation equipment we owned was designed to sell power and could not to generate electricity by isolated operation, so we felt frustrated that we could not support the local residents, which led to our desire to introduce power generation equipment for complete self-consumption.
Adaptation Initiatives
In order to sustain electricity in rural areas in the event of a disaster, we modified the structure of our own solar sharing (farm-based solar power generation facility) (Note 1) and installed new panels for self-consumption, enabling the generated electricity to be stored in stationary storage batteries and used for electric farm equipment and electric vehicles. An ultra-compact electric vehicle, which can be charged in about 6 hours, was also introduced as a means of transportation to manage the farmland (Fig.1). We also concluded a disaster cooperation agreement with the neighborhood association in the district, to lend portable storage batteries as well as battery-powered work lights and radios to evacuation centers in the district (Fig. 2) in the event of an emergency.
When Boso Peninsula Typhoon occurred in 2019, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles made by major automobile manufacturers played an invaluable role as power source vehicles in blacked-out areas, proving their usefulness as "running storage batteries”.
Effects / Expected Benefits
In the event of a disaster, they can function as lifelines, providing transportation and power sources as an alternative to fossil fuels. In addition, daily use of EV vehicles and mobile batteries supplied by solar sharing for agriculture and the community is expected to lead to the construction of BCP (Note 2) for rural areas. As people become aware that such vehicles and equipment can be useful in their daily lives, they may be encouraged to adopt them for personal use, which leads to the creation of disaster-resistant communities.
