Event

JRE CEO Kazuhiro Takeuchi took the stage to give the keynote speech and participate in a panel discussion during an event entitled Meet Japan Power 2023 held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo’s Marunouchi district. The audience comprised around 300 investors and representatives of energy-related businesses inside and outside Japan, some of whom were present at the venue, while others participated online. Takeuchi gave a speech about current developments and challenges in Japan’s energy industry, and initiatives on the part of JRE. His speech was followed by a panel discussion and Q&A session that lasted an hour and a half, during which a lively dialogue took place. The dialogue covered a wide range of topics, including the effects of transitioning from the FIT (Feed-in Tariff) system to the FIP (Feed-in Premium) system, the impact of storage batteries, and the government policies necessary to reestablish growth in solar power generation. Takeuchi led the discussion from the viewpoint of the leading business operator in Japan’s renewable energy industry.

JRE’s Managing Executive Officer Kiyoshi Doi and four employees participated in a project to clear an ancient pathway through a satoyama* in Isumi, Chiba prefecture, to make the pathway accessible again. They joined professional surfer Hiroto Ohhara (ranked fifth in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics), who was brought up in the area, and five local junior high school students, who were learning to surf, and were accompanied by their guardians. The event also involved volunteers from the local community and representatives of an NPO.

Together with the local volunteer group, which had already been working on this project for some time, and the NPO, which undertakes forest conservation activities, the participants all took hold of saws and spent around three hours cutting down trees and twigs on a steep stretch of mountain path approximately 1 meter wide. They removed the wood as they worked by handing it from one person to the next, and eventually came to a spectacular clearing around 100 meters from where they had started. The volunteers erupted into cheers when they saw the stunning view of the sea stretching out below them. It was chilly as they took a break, listening to the story of how the ancient pathway had been created during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and served as a regular route for the community. This event enabled the children, who usually spend a lot of time by the sea, to experience the connection between the sea and the mountains and appreciate its importance.

Since 2020, JRE has organized various events in collaboration with athletes; this event followed on from Kiyoshi Doi’s discussion with Hiroto and Sari Ohhara in 2022. JRE will continue to participate in and support similar projects that contribute to local communities and promote education.

* Satoyama refers to areas close to mountains where people inhabit and sustainably manage a landscape encompassing both natural forest and agricultural fields.

An elementary school in a district near to Nakakyushu Onitayama Wind Farm organized an excursion for its students, and the wind farm’s office was used as a checkpoint and rest stop for a neighborhood orienteering event that formed part of the excursion.

A total of 53 elementary school students visited the office in teams and made pinwheels by hand while talking with employees. The elementary school students had walked five kilometers, so some of them were looking tired, but as they made the pinwheels their faces became increasingly animated and they appeared to enjoy themselves.

Four JRE Group employees participated in a community cleanup held on the annual cleanup day in Kunohe Village, Iwate Prefecture, a town with a population of about 5,500 people and an area of 134 km2, more than 70% of which is covered in forests and wilderness.

Residents had begun cleaning even before the official start time and our employees kept right up with them.

One participant said, “There wasn’t that much garbage but that is one of the nice things about Kunohe Village.” Another participant commented, “Cleaning really cheered me up! I am looking forward to participating in these kinds of activities again in the future.”

Eight employees from JRE Group participated in roadside ditch cleaning with the neighborhood association near the JRE Himeji Solar Power Plant.

Unfortunately, the weather was rainy, so work was carried out by JRE participants and some residents from the neighborhood association. They all worked together to remove the dirt and leaves that had collected in the roadside ditches. The population of the area is aging and they are unable to do the ditch cleaning so the residents of the neighborhood association greatly appreciated our participation.

One employee, who does not have many opportunities to visit the power plant, remarked that it was apparent that the company is building positive relationships with the area residents.

The day before the festival, eleven JRE Group executives and employees helped with festival preparations, such as peeling moso bamboo shoots and making bamboo sake cups, as instructed by community members. Some of the food and drink served at the festival included moso soup made from freshly harvested moso bamboo, miso, and sake lees; rice cooked with moso bamboo and seasonings; and kappo-zake, Japanese rice wine warmed in moso bamboo tubes. The miso and shiitake mushrooms used in the moso soup were produced in Sanze.

On the day of the festival, the executives and employees participated in a woodland walking tour, after which they joined in the Sanze Moso Festival at the base of the JRE Hachimoriyama Wind Farm. After walking, the moso bamboo soup was deeply nourishing and tasted even more delicious than it had during the festival preparations the day before.

The participants were able to take part in the festival with the local community from the preparation phase to clean up. It was a very meaningful experience.

Nine JRE Group employees helped clean out roadside ditches. Despite the typhoon that approached just before, the weather was perfect for cleaning.

The ditches, which were quite deep in places, were filled not only with branches and leaves but also rocks and gravel. It was hard physical labor but after two hours the stagnant and muddy water had been cleared out to some extent. Residents expressed their gratitude and the employees left with an invigorating feeling of accomplishment.

One employee said, “I saw pressing local problems, such as population aging, with my own eyes.” Another commented, “In the future I hope to be able to participate in more activities to contribute to the local community, including volunteer cleanups.”

JRE held the Energy Forest Experience Program for JRE Group employees. Participants helped with tree planting and through the experience learned about the importance of Japan’s forests and the significance of sustainable resource use. The cloudy weather was perfect for tree planting and about 20 people participated. With the support of EG Forest, a Group company, participants planted 1,000 eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus trees grow quickly and become sufficiently large in eight to ten years.

Participants began working in pairs within teams with one person responsible for digging and the other responsible for planting. Before long the pairs and teams merged agreeably into one large group and finished the planned planting early.

Participants said they felt “a sense of teamwork while working of my own volition” and “hoped the trees grow well.” One participant said, “I want to be around to see the trees we planted become a part of JRE’s biomass power generation.

JRE staff delivered a lecture about the data center adjoining the Nagano Omachi Solar Power Plant, including its performance and challenges of a self-consumption model built on a power plant site, at the Next Generation Data Center Study Group held at the University of Tokyo and co-sponsored by the Green University of Tokyo Project and the Japan Data Center Council. Over 100 people, including online participants, listened to the lecture.

The data center has received attention as a GPU-specialized green data center for cloud computing services. Half a year has passed since it began operating as an energy-saving, self-consumption type facility. It is a small, containerized data center but appears to have been recognized for its part in the efforts to decentralize the data center business.

Yasuyuki Kaneko, Representative Director of JRE Operations Corporation, participated as a panelist at the Energy Storage Summit Asia held in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands.

The topic of the panel was strengthening grids. Power plant operators, banks, and suppliers discussed the role of storage batteries in contributing to grid stability and electricity transmission and distribution capacity. Kaneko described the high potential for the storage battery business in the Japanese market, using examples such as the output fluctuation suppression requirement in Hokkaido and its removal, deregulation surrounding the storage battery business (approved by the cabinet in June), March–May curtailment in Kyushu, and the long-term decarbonized power supply auction.

The JRE Group is also incorporating this as a new pillar of value creation.

The first Global Wind Day event was held at the Azuma Kogen Wind Farm, which began operating this May in Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture. Members of the Fukushima Eco Expedition joined the day’s events.

The Fukushima Eco Expedition is an educational program sponsored by Fukushima City to teach students in the 4th–6th grades of elementary school about their local environment in a fun way. The team members participate in field work, sight visits, and other activities throughout the year. Sixteen team members, led by teachers and students from Fukushima University, participated in the event, along with city employees.

The first activity took place at conference room at the Azuma Learning Center where participants learned to make wind turbines from empty plastic bottles they had brought.

The way the children worked together on this hands-on activity was impressive, though staff assisted with some tricky steps, such as making the connections when attaching the nacelle motor to the LED and adjusting the orientation of the blades.

The group then went to the wind farm for a tour of a wind turbine. Turbine 4 was chosen for the tour because it has the best view at the wind farm, including a wonderful view of the city.

Before taking an in-depth tour of the turbine, young employees introduced the work done at the wind farm. They wore the uniform normally worn for turbine inspections and spoke about their everyday work. The children listened intently as the employees shared stories that most people do not usually get the opportunity to hear.

Finally, a few people at a time observed inside the turbine from the tower entrance and learned about the machines inside the turbine and their purposes.

The children were energetic from start to finish and showed great interest in the hands-on activity and the wind farm tour. As the wind farm is visible from the city, we hope that the participants will feel a sense of fondness for it as familiar source of renewable energy.

JRE welcomed 31 students from the Business Academy Aarhus (BAA) in Denmark and Showa Women’s University (SWU) and hosted a session about the renewable energy business as a part of the BAA-SWU Joint Summer Program 2023, a sustainability-focused program run jointly by BAA and SWU.

During the program, visiting Danish students and Japanese students form teams and spend two weeks considering the management challenges of global businesses and potential solutions, from the standpoint of ESG and the SDGs, through company visits, group work, and classes.

In the session held at JRE on August 9, our chairman, Shigeru Yasu, shared stories about the company’s founding and the allure of working in the renewable energy business. Then JRE staff spoke about the renewable energy market in Japan and JRE initiatives. Finally, a few younger staff members joined the students and held a group discussion in which they answered student questions about their current business operations and why they decided to work in the renewable energy business.

Information about the session can also be found on the Showa Women’s University blog (Japanese only) (link).

JRE will continue to provide a variety of learning opportunities in the future as we keep working to foster understanding of renewable energy.

JRE Operations personnel delivered a lecture at a conference of the Commonwealth of Cassiopeia Council (consisting of local council members from Ninohe City, Ichinohe Town, and Kunohe Village, where the JRE Oritsumedake South 1 Wind Farm is located, and Karumai Town), which was attended by 67 people.

The 70-minute lecture was followed by a lively question and answer session, where the council members asked questions about a variety of topics such as the growth of renewable energy and the ideal energy mix.

It was apparent from their questions that, with a wind farm now a part of their everyday scenery, these topics are not simply something receiving a lot of media attention but issues near at hand. Even after the conference was concluded, several participants still asked the lecturer about the operation of the turbines. The conference made us realize anew the need to ensure safety and operation at maximum capacity.

JRE staff gave a lecture entitled “A Case Study of the JRE Inashiki Kamagayama Solar Power Plant” to the New Energy System Committee of the Japan Electrical Manufacturers’ Association (JEMA). We were given this opportunity because our plant is one of a very few solar power plants with storage batteries. The lecture therefore focused on the operational performance, challenges, and future outlook of the power plant.

Held in a JEMA conference room, the meeting was participated in by 16 people in person or online, consisting of committee members from 12 leading Japanese electrical manufacturers and JEMA staff. The group’s keen interest was apparent through the many insightful technical questions that were asked. JEMA also gave heartening assurances that they can make proposals to address our challenges. Their remarks reminded us of the importance of cooperating across industries to expand renewable energy.

Fifteen employees of the JRE Group participated in the Okuma Kabuto Festival hosted by Nanao City, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Okuma Kabuto Festival is a festival banner parade designated as a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Asset that has been held continuously since ancient times in Nanao’s Nakajima-machi area. Portable shrines sent out by each of the 19 branch shrines located in the district’s individual hamlets process into the main shrine led by the deity Sarutahiko wearing a goblin mask, and followed by a retinue of strong young people carrying huge 20-m tall crimson banners. They are accompanied by a great fanfare including shouts of “Iyasakasa!” as well as gongs and drums. When all the portable shrines have entered the hall of worship, an offering ceremony takes place in the main shrine, then the Sarutahiko deities dance around the shrine’s precincts to the sounds of gongs and drums beaten by the young people.

Fifteen JRE employees participated in this soul-stirring festival as members of the Yamatoda district of Nakajima-machi in Nanao, thereby forging closer relationships with a wide variety of people both inside and outside the district. As many of the employees were engaged in work that allowed few opportunities to interact with local residents in this operating location, it proved to be a very beneficial experience for them. The chair of the Yamatoda district neighborhood association expressed the desire to maintain friendly relations with JRE employees for many years to come. Going forward, the JRE Group will continue to stand side-by-side with local residents as part of the community.

JRE exhibited a booth at the Environmental Fair Tsuruoka 2023 hosted by the government of Tsuruoka City, where the JRE Tsuruoka Hachimoriyama Wind Farm is located. This was JRE’s second consecutive year of exhibiting at the fair.

The booth displayed panels giving overviews of the JRE Group and JRE Tsuruoka Hachimoriyama Wind Farm, as well as the community contribution measures JRE is implementing all over Japan. It also showed a video of the wind farm construction process.

During the fair, the opportunity to make special JRE pinwheels proved very popular among families with children. During the fair, the opportunity to make special JRE pinwheels proved very popular among families with children.

The JRE Group will continue striving to interact more with Tsuruoka’s residents as part of the local community.

Yasuyuki Kaneko, Representative Director of JRE Operations Corporation participated as a panelist in Japan Wind Energy 2023, an event held in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. The theme of the panel discussion was Maximize Energy Efficiency Through the Combination of Wind Power and Energy Storage and the panelists included representatives of power companies, a technical consultancy, and a storage battery manufacturer. The discussion centered primarily on the feasibility of creating wind farms equipped with battery storage systems in Japan in light of overseas case studies, as well as Japan’s current electricity grid and market design. It also included lively exchanges on the compatibility of battery storage systems with offshore wind power generation when revenues are predicated on corporate Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) whereby consumers of electricity purchase their electricity directly, as well as other topics such as optimal locations for installing batteries in relation to the electricity grid, and the relaxation of regulations under the Fire Service Act.

Japan Wind Energy 2023 was attended by around 2,000 people involved in wind power generation.

On a clear day, 14 people including JRE Group employees planted eucalyptus trees in Sammu City, Chiba Prefecture, after learning about the importance of forests and the sustainable use of forest resources by actually examining cut wood. It was the second time this event had been held, following the previous occasion in June.

The participants planted a total of 640 trees over approximately three hours, with only two short breaks. They were guided by EG Forest, a forest management company that has mastered the techniques for efficient tree planting through long experience.

The eucalyptus trees planted in June had grown to around waist-height in four months (see photo); they are expected to continue growing fast without the need for any weed-cutting. Some of the trees planted by another group in the spring had grown to around two meters in height.

Plans call for the fully grown eucalyptus trees to be used as fuel for biomass power generation, among a variety of other uses. JRE Group hopes to contribute to a recycling-oriented society by continuing to plant trees and promoting active use of Japan’s unmaintained forests.

The press release below (available only in Japanese) provides further details of EG Forest’s reforestation projects.
https://www.eco-g.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/eg-news20210716a.pdf

Residents of Yonezawa invited JRE to promote the benefits of small hydropower at an event in the city. We partnered with the Tokyo Electric Generation Co., Ltd. and Fujita Corporation to exhibit at the event.

At our booth, we displayed items including a model of a generator borrowed from its manufacturer and a diorama of a Tokyo Electric Generation Co. power plant, and attendants explained the small-hydropower generation process to festival visitors. The booth attracted a large number of people ranging from local government employees to university students and parents with young children. It appeared that these visitors gained a better understanding of small-hydropower generation as a result.

JRE will continue working to promote more thorough and widespread understanding of renewable energy by participating in events such as this.

The town of Gokase, where JRE’s Miyazaki Office is located, held an event to promote recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, at which the Miyazaki Office set up an exhibition booth.

Visitors to the booth could try their hand at making three different kinds of pinwheel: an easy pinwheel that even small children could make, an Instagrammable pinwheel with blades made of candy that actually rotated, and a plastic bottle pinwheel that was relatively difficult to make (but could rotate well, depending on how it was designed). All kinds of people from preschoolers to seniors stopped by the booth, which was especially popular with children. The event itself was a great success, and provided a good opportunity for our employees to talk face-to-face with local residents. The mayor of Gokase thanked the Miyazaki Office for its involvement.

The JRE Group will continue nurturing its links to local communities by participating actively on such occasions.

JRE held a tour of the Nakakyushu Onitayama 2 Wind Farm and an art-making event based on the theme of “wind” for elementary and junior high school students in the village of Morotsuka. A total of 31 locals participated. You could tell how interested the children were in the wind turbines by the countless questions they bombarded the staff with on the tour such as, “What are the jagged things on the blades of the wind turbines?” and “How did you bring them all the way here?”

After the tour, everyone made works of art by creating images of plants on fabric with “the world’s oldest form of photography.” They had a great time making lively art that looked like afterimages of plants blowing in the wind, in line with the theme of “making invisible wind visible.” And our employees were happy that the tour and artwork made children more familiar with wind.

FOM Academy, a training center in Fukushima Prefecture specializing in wind power generation, held a practical seminar on wind turbine maintenance at which Yasuyuki Kaneko, Representative Director of JRE Operations Corporation, gave a presentation.

As his theme, Kaneko addressed the potential for local companies to enter the wind power business as viewed from the perspective of a power producer and O&M* provider. He spoke about power producers’ efforts to reduce costs per unit of power generated, and the resulting business opportunities in relation to wind power O&M. The representatives of local companies in the audience actively asked questions, and the presentation gave the impression that the wind power O&M business offered potential.

*O&M: Operation and maintenance of power plants

Five JRE employees participated in the Morotsuka Village Culture Festival. A popular event drawing people from both inside and outside the village, it saw around 1,800 visitors—over 10 times the population of the village. A booth was even set up for us featuring panels introducing our company and exhibiting the art the local children made on November 11.

There was a huge turnout of locals to the booth, and some even commented how they can see the wind turbines from their house and watch them turn every day. It was a valuable opportunity to see how the locals have embraced the wind farm as part of their lives.

JRE provides notebooks featuring educational content free of charge to elementary schools in the cities, towns, and villages where its power plants are located. Distribution of the notebooks for the current academic year started at the end of November across Japan.

A presentation ceremony was held recently at Sakata City Hall in Yamagata Prefecture, at which JRE President and CEO Kazuhiro Takeuchi presented notebooks to the mayor of Sakata, Akiko Yaguchi. The mayor commented that the notebooks were excellent and would enable the schools’ students to learn about renewable energy.

Going forward, JRE will continue to support learning within local communities.

※Some of JRE’s measures contributing to local communities throughout Japan are described on the webpage below.(Japanese only)
https://www.eneos-re.com/community/contribution/

As part of the Gokase Design Project (an initiative aimed at devising future policies for the town of Gokase), JRE Group employees taught a class to around 50 first- and second-year junior high school students.

In a lecture during the first half of the class, they told the students about the Nakakyushu Onitayama Wind Farms (including the second wind farm), explaining how power is generated and providing an overview of renewable energy. Perhaps because the wind turbines are part of their day-to-day lives, the students were very interested and listened attentively, even when the content was difficult to understand.

The second half of the class was interactive, including a Q&A session and group work. The students asked numerous questions about the wind farms’ development, operation, and equipment, and the four JRE employees took turns to answer according to their individual areas of work. Following the Q&A, the students divided into groups to discuss ideas for the Gokase Design Project, and the class ended with some very impressive presentations of their ideas.

This class taught by JRE employees not only served as an opportunity for the school’s　students to gain a more thorough understanding of wind power generation, but also proved to be a valuable learning experience for the employees themselves.

The JRE Group will continue to support the education of the next generation in future.

An employee participated in the Isumi Health Marathon (aka Akemi Masuda Cup), held in Isumi City, Chiba Prefecture, wearing an original JRE T-shirt. The city of Isumi is one of the areas where we are considering doing business and we enjoy good relations with the community. The marathon course was flat, set against a backdrop of rice fields. Participants had an enjoyable run accompanied by the warm cheers of locals the entire way. Akemi Masuda herself waited at the goal and congratulated the runners with high-fives, making for a deeply memorable event.

JRE held a class on how to jump rope and make jumping rope with local bamboo for elementary school students in Isumi City and Otaki Town in Chiba Prefecture with the cooperation of Takemori No Sato—an NPO that manages and protects abandoned bamboo forests in Boso Peninsula—and world jump rope champion Hiroma Kurono. Sixteen children participated. It was hard at first, but with the help of parents, they skillfully cut bamboo with a saw and made jump rope. The children also jumped rope with Hiroma Kurono and his team using the jumping rope they made and watched a spectacular jump rope performance by them.

The children and parents not only had fun with jumping rope, but also seemed to have increased their interest in local environmental problems after listening to the lecture on abandoned bamboo forests. Going forward we will continue planning and carrying out more events like this that contribute to solving local environmental problems and promoting sports to help educate the next generation.

A class on the theme of “Renewables × Local Communities” was held at Chiba University as part of its cross-departmental course “Local Innovation in the Age of Regional Revitalization.” JRE Managing Executive Officer Kiyoshi Doi gave a lecture in the class with university alumni Takeshi Magami, President of Chiba Ecological Energy Inc., a company that specializes in agricultural photovoltaic power generation. They talked about their companies’ activities such as the businesses they operate and internships they offer in different regions. Over 200 students participated. The students and lecturers were able to communicate with each other in real-time through questionnaires. The lecturers also talked about how they built their careers and touched on other topics as well.

Students gave comments such as, “It made me more interested in getting involved in local activities” and “It inspired me to think about my future career.”

Going forward, JRE will continue to support the education of the next generation.

At the end of November, JRE started to provide this academic year’s notebooks featuring educational content free of charge to cities, towns, and villages where its power plants are located. A presentation ceremony was held recently at Kamisu City Hall in Ibaraki Prefecture, at which JRE Managing Executive Officer Masahide Morita presented notebooks to the mayor of Kamisu, Susumu Ishida. The mayor commented that he was very grateful for the notebooks as their content was easy to understand and he had heard that they were popular among the children.

Going forward, JRE will continue to support learning within local communities.

※Some of JRE’s measures contributing to local communities throughout Japan are described on the webpage below.(Japanese only)
https://www.eneos-re.com/community/contribution/