The Japanese government yesterday called on Tokyo residents to continue conserving electricity by switching off their lights as forecasts of further scorching heat threaten to put more pressure on the grid.
Offices across the city are going dark to help conserve energy.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government turned off the lights in some offices yesterday afternoon, the Mainichi newspaper reported.
Photo: Reuters
The municipal government also stopped one of its elevators in an effort to curb power usage, the report said.
Japan’s temperatures for the last 10 days of this month are expected to be the hottest for the period in at least 100 years, public broadcaster NHK reported.
High temperatures would continue to strain power supplies as the week progresses, with Japan’s government extending an advisory into today that calls for households and businesses to curb consumption in Tokyo.
The city’s power reserve ratio is today expected to drop below a minimum threshold for grid stability, data from the network coordinator showed.
Japan’s power crunch this week comes amid expectations of a long summer of pressure on electricity networks across much of Asia, with blistering heat seen raising demand just as global fuel shortages limit supply.
While hotter weather later this week is expected to stretch Tokyo’s grid, the capital is unlikely to face blackouts as generation in the rest of the country is strong.
Tokyo’s spot power prices for this afternoon climbed to ￥200 per kilowatt hour, the highest intraday level since January last year, Japan Electric Power Exchange data showed.
Top Japan steelmakers, including Nippon Steel Corp and JFE Holdings Inc, said they would boost power output from their own generation facilities to help add more supply to the Tokyo region.
Japan recently introduced a new system to warn people to prepare for potential power crunches. Under the new methodology, the government issues a supply advisory a day before if electricity reserve ratios are expected to drop below 5 percent and ramps it up to an alert if that figure is seen slipping under 3 percent, the minimum level necessary for a stable grid.
The power reserve ratio for Tokyo is forecast to stay below 3 percent for much of this afternoon.
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