Japanese Research Institute Forecasts Drastic Expansion of Geothermal Power Generation Market

Yano Research Institute Ltd., a marketing research company in Japan, released on December 20, 2011, the results of its investigation on Japan's geothermal power generation market study. The investigation was performed by face-to-face interview and document research between October and December 2011. The results show that the coming 10 years will see a rapid market expansion and an increase in binary cycle power generation.

Japan is among the world's richest countries along with regard to geothermal resources. Japan conducted little new investigation on underground resources and few new installations of geothermal power generation stations; rather, Japan focused on selling electricity and maintaining existing plants. The institute estimated that the scale of the geothermal power generation market was about 58 billion yen (US$753 million) in FY2010. For the coming 10 years, however, the market scale, mainly in electricity sales, will change markedly with the new installation of large-scale geothermal power generation plants and other related factors. As a result, the institute forcasts, FY 2011 up to FY2020 the market will expand sharply to about 849 billion yen (US$11 billion).

In the market of binary cycle power generation, which uses comparatively low-temperature steam and hot water as a heat source, domestic manufacturers have been actively participating since 2010. The institute forecasts that this trend will lead to make further steps in cost reduction, downsizing, performance improvement and generation efficiency upgrades. These steps are expected to encourage more widespread use of hot-spring power generation, the institute predicts.

Business Association Research Reveals Tohoku Region has 740,000 Kilowatts of Potential Geothermal Capacity (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/031521.html
Current Status of Renewable Energy in Japan
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/031513.html
Idemitsu and Inpex to Conduct Geothermal Development Survey (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/031306.html

Posted: 2012/04/08 06:00:15 AM