Talk:Energy in Japan

Regional electric providers
Somebody please put this information in the article:


 * Regional electric providers
 * The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) - 東京電力
 * Kyūshū Electric Power Company (Kyūshū Electric) - 九州電力
 * Chūbu Electric Power Company (Chūbu Electric) - 中部電力
 * Tōhoku Electric Power Company (Tōhoku Electric) - 東北電力
 * Shikoku Electric Power Company (YONDEN) - 四国電力
 * Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) - 関西電力
 * Hokuriku Electric Power Company (RIKUDEN) - 北陸電力
 * Hokkaidō Electric Power Company (HEPCO) - 北海道電力
 * Chūgoku Electric Power Company(Chuden) - 中国電力
 * Okinawa is missing btw

And maybe pleeeease talk some about the history of the electrical utilities in Japan and whatnot. It doesn't belong in the article I put it in, but there's almost zero work on Wikipedia about this so far. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 15:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

That should go in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan rather than here. Basroil (talk) 09:42, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Why 50Hz and 60Hz?
Why do some parts of Japan use 50Hz for mains electricity, and others use 60Hz? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.78.169.194 (talk) 09:42, 29 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That is due to the competing suppliers to Osaka and Tokyo at the turn of the century. Osaka went with US built generators operating at 60hz (US standard) while Tokyo used German generators operating at 50hz (European standard). I believe the electrical energy section explains it well.  Basroil (talk) 09:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a very interesting topic, and I would like to see § National grid expanded upon. Until Techmoan's 3 Nov 2019 video, I was unaware that Japan had multiple power grid standards. I had not previously come across this in reference to gaming consoles, just region coding. Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 08:50, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Electrical energy is not the only form of energy
As is done for other countries, this page should include all forms of energy, not just electrical. Heating and transportation are quite important, yet there is no information. Basroil (talk) 09:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Renewable tariff
User:Ita140188, in subject to the renewable tariff (Feed-in tariff) launched in July 2013 The Guardian told that it obligates utility companies to buy electricity from renewable sources at fixed prices from private individuals and companies . Is this true and unconditional? It deserves in my opinion place since in Finland only the large utilities will get tariff of the RE. For example, the municipal energy plants in Finland have been too small to get compensation of their renewable energy use for heating. Solar energy of individual houses can be given for the big power companies but the producer will not get any compensation. Earlier the 40 % subsidies of solar in Finland were only directed to the copmpanies and municipal buildings but not for private persons. Therefore, in my opinion equal policy would be revolutionary in Finland. Watti Renew (talk) 15:22, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Thermal energy loss
'' Prim. energy includes energy losses that are 2/3 for nuclear power.''

Engscietc I included this since it has large difference in values compared to wind power. For use of power the losses are lost energy. The source of information is IEA in Paris. In my opinion the location has influenced in the statistics since France is one of the most nuclear power devoted countries. Data can be verified. Watti Renew (talk) 17:31, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Overview energy table
Engscietc you included 2012 data from Japan, thanks. Additional references of data is welcomed. IEA statistics is only one of potentials. I do not evaluate which is "correct", if any. IEA data has advantage to be available from many countries worldwide. Supplementay sources of data is good. I add the IEA statistics in own row. Watti Renew (talk) 17:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Class assignment
I am making some edits for my class assignment and adding to the breadth of the article as well as providing better and updated sources as many of the source links do not work currently. Please feel free to let me know anything else that could be improved! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roche.n (talk • contribs) 22:35, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Article layout is pretty bad
The article layout conflates secondary energy and primary energy. For example hydroelectricity is listed as an 'energy source' but is not not directly comparable with (say) gas. Hydroelectricity, wind power, solar power generate secondary energy, which are far more valuable, and much more efficiently converted.

The issue is that a kilowatt hour of (hydro)electricity is usually equivalent to several kilowatt hours of gas. For example, if you're are trying to produce lighting, electricity is *ever* so much more efficient than gas lighting. Or, heating, while resistive heating can be used and is as efficient as gas, heat pumps/air conditioning (which are widely deployed in Japan) give 2-4 times the heating for the same energy inputs than gas or kerosene.

Many of the other articles separate primary and secondary (electrical) energy. I noticed the associated French article separates them completely into different articles entirely.

It causes multiple issues, because, for example, I was working on the electricity sector in Japan article, which points to this article for all the renewable electrical power generation. Really (apart from any biofuel production), it should be if anything the other way around. Another issue is that people tend to directly compare primary and secondary energies- I've seen televised debates where politicians do this in the real world, in front of parliament. That's a huge mistake.GliderMaven (talk) 15:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Nobody is trying to say that a kWh equivalent of primary gas is the same as a kWh of electricity. What the article implies is just that gas, hydro, solar, wind etc. are all sources of energy, which is true. The fact that people don't understand the difference between primary energy supply and final energy consumption and secondary energy vectors is nothing new, but I don't see how it is related to this article. The link from electricity sector in Japan is a "see also" link to a section that deals (or should deal, since it is almost only electricity) with all renewable energy. (I updated the link to the main article that is being created, by the way) Also the way other articles are organized is irrelevant, since as far as I know there is no agreed on guideline for this kind of articles. Maybe it would be a good opportunity to actually create a guideline for this. In my opinion, these articles "Energy in .." should be divided in Energy sources (supply), Energy transformation/transmission/transport, Energy demand (by sector, etc), Carbon emissions/environmental impact. What do you think? --Ita140188 (talk) 00:00, 28 March 2018 (UTC)