Energy consumption increased for the first time in seven years―Affected by heating demand of the household sector
Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced the energy demand supply performance (preliminary report) for FY2017 on November 15.
Final energy consumption increased by 0.4% compared with the previous year, and it began to increase for the first time after the Great East Japan Earthquake and its growth was affected by severe winter. With the support of renewable energy dissemination and restart of nuclear power plants, the domestic primary energy supply increased by 1.0%. Looking at final energy consumption by sector, for industry and no-residential building sector it was flat compared with the previous year, for the household sector increased by 4.1%, and for the transport sector by 0.8%. The household sector was affected by the growth in heating demand accompanying severe winter. Total generated electricity in FY2017 increased by 0.6% to 1,560 billion kwh. Nuclear power increased by 1.8 times to 32.9 billion kWh, coal decreased by 0.3% to 3.406 billion kWh, natural gas decreased by 3.3% to 4.201 billion kwh, petroleum and other fell 9.7% to 92 billion kwh .
In addition, hydropower increased by 6.8% to 84.9 billion kwh. Among renewable energy, solar power increased by 20.3% to 55 billion kWh, wind power increased by 5.1% to 6.5 billion kWh, geothermal energy decreased by 1.8% to 2.5 billion kWh, biomass increased by 9.3% to 21.5 billion kwh. On the other hand, the energy self-sufficiency rate (IEA base) increased by 1.2 points to 9.5%.
Oil dependence decreased by 0.6 points to 39.1%, and the dependence on fossil energy was down 1.3 points to 87%. The energy-origin carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions decreased by 1.4% to 1,112 million tons, declining for the fourth consecutive year. CO2 emissions intensity (electricity usage) of electric power improved by 2.7% compared with the previous year to 0.52 kg per 1 kwh.
Source: Monthly Magazine “Energy Conservation”