Now I would like to start the second session, the afternoon session.
We have two sessions in the afternoon.
Firstly, we have the second session
with the theme of "Ownership and Public Participation".
Now we would like to have a keynote for 20 minutes by Mr. Stefan Gsänger
who is the Secretary General of the World Wind Energy Association.
After that, we are going to have a panel discussion
with panelists like the previous session.
Now, I would like to introduce Stefan briefly.
Stefan is the Secretary General of the World Wind Energy Association
and has been playing the leader role of the development
of wind power penetration in the world.
World Wind Energy Association holds the wind power conference every year
and there is an important session or a working group
which is to increase the renewable energy
democratically in the region from now on
sharing experiences and achievements
of the communities around the world
with the theme of "Community Power".
He has been committing this group where they have discussed
how to achieve it and what concept we should have.
Please welcome the speaker, Mr. Stephan Gsänger.
Now we are going to start the panel discussion.
So we would like to have the panelists on stage.
We enter the panel discussion of the second session.
I am the moderator, Noriaki Yamashita, Senior Research Fellow
of Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies.
I am also enrolled doctoral program at the Free University of Berlin in Berlin
although I live in Japan.
So Stefan and I might speak in German
but I will do my best so that it might not happen.
The theme of the second session is "Ownership and Public Participation".
We have asked him to speak as a keynote
concerning the community power movement as seen from wind power.
And I want to have a discussion focused on "Ownership and Public Participation"
with the people who have involved various projects
in various positions and in various areas not limited to wind power.
I think we have audience of about 85 at this conference today.
We are broadcasting this conference on Ustream.
If you have anyone who wants to look at today's conference later,
please inform him or her to check the home page of
ISEP (Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies).
The video of this conference will be archived
as well as the past Ustream casts.
I want to go into the discussion in the second session.
I think I want each panelist to do self-introduction
concerning what he or she involves in each region first.
We have panelists from various regions in Japan.
Mr. Hara of the Ohisama Shimpo Energy is from Nagano Prefecture,
and Professor Maruyama who came from Nagoya today
involved in the project in Aomori Prefecture.
We also have a Mayor, Mr. Hosaka of Setagaya-ku in Tokyo.
And we have Mis Tamiya from Akita Prefecture
who is a planner and has launched a group called Kasane-Tsumugu.
I think we would like to have panelists to introduce themselves
and what they have been doing. And after that
we want to discuss from the viewpoint of "Ownership and Public Participation".
First, we would like to have Mr. Hara.
Hello everyone. Thank you for the introduction.
My name is Hara of Ohisama Shimpo Energy.
I am from Iida City in Nagano Prefecture,
in the south of the Shinshu.
The living area of Iida City is populated by more than 105,000 people
and located around 500 meters above sea level.
This is an area of approximately 170,000 people
and of 1920 square kilometers
including neighboring towns and villages
so we have 170,000 people approximately
in the same area as Osaka Prefecture or Kagawa Prefecture.
In fiscal 2004, in effect we might have entered the fiscal year 2005,
we started the business in the mechanism called citizen investment
raising funds and investing it to projects to reduce CO2 emissions
and reduce to the investors the profit produced from the projects.
We have used the mechanism of the citizen windmill and citizen investment
which were launched by Mr. Suzuki in Hokkaido
who has paneled in the previous session in the morning
and we have raised five funds so far by using these knowledge.
It has been 840 million yen approximately.
We have projects mainly of solar power
including energy conservation and biomass so far
and we have installed solar power
of close to 1,440 kW at 210 sites excluding ones under construction now.
The projects have been distributed in various areas to reduce CO2 emissions
and to distribute the profit to the people who have invested.
We have been promoting citizen investors to come on the places
rather than simply investing
so that the business is working together with local stakeholders and citizens
and we are doing business such that local government is involved properly.
Thank you. Next, Professor Maruyama, please.
My name is Maruyama. Thank you for inviting me today.
As profession I have been involved in research and teaching of sociology
in the Graduate School of Nagoya University.
My theme of research is how to have renewable energy
rooted better in the community.
Beside the research as profession I aim to increase
the best practices of it properly in Japan.
For me, this is as important as the research as profession.
Not primarily because of this, I am the board chairman of an NPO
which have built a so-called citizen windmill in Aomori Prefecture.
I think I am a director of power producer formally
So I am a sole social scientist in the world, I guess,
who is at the same time a director of power producer.
I just mentioned the best practices and good practices, im my opinion,
have to satisfy a lot of and a wider variety of people.
Actually wind power is not a terribly profitable business.
Of course it is possible to earn a stable course.
But it is not yet incredibly lucrative.
So we focus on how to produce value-added
besides a direct economic effect.
In our case of wind power in Aomori,
roughly half of the investment is local public investment in terms of prefecture-level.
The remaining 50% is from large cities such as Tokyo or Osaka.
In that sense it is half and half and makes connections well among people.
Not only to return simply the money of investment,
we have activities focused on an effort to create a ripple effect
triggered by the windmill such as the sale of agricultural products
of the region where windmill is located.
Thank you very much. Next, Mayor Hosaka please.
I would like to explain it using some of the powerpoint.
I am Nobuto Hosaka, Mayor of Setagaya-ku.
Could you show the fifth page.
I became the mayor in April (2011)
after the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
of Tokyo Electric Power Company
when power saving has been said to be crucial.
Can you see it? It is something strange a little.
Sorry, I will fix it. Yes, I continue disregarding it.
It has been said that the power saving is crucial
and power outage might happen at any time.
We wanted to know the actual usage at a moment in Setagaya-ku
and the amount of electricity TEOCO was able to supply.
I just tried to show people so-called electricity forecast
which TEPCO is still doing
and can be seen on a computer screen or on a smartphone .
We asked TEPCO to inform us how much electricity
we were actually using in Setagaya-ku in the electricity forecast.
We did various interactions and they finally decided to give us
the total data of 23 wards of Tokyo and
we put it up to the home page of Setagaya-ku.
This means that, oh, this is it.
Would you show the next page?
This is the data sent from TEPCO to Setagaya-ku.
This is August 31 last year at the height of summer.
It was pretty hot though. This is the peak of 13.36 million kW
and the reduction target is the green line and the blue line here is the actual usage.
It was clealy found in July already that there was much room
even with the data of a fairly wider district of 23 wards.
Known these above, Setagaya-ku began considering
the introduction of PPS. And page 9, please.
I made proposals to Mr. Edano, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry.
We decided to change the electricity company to PPS fromTEPCO
and the sum of the electricity was 670 million yen.
There were reactions from the residents
saying they wanted to do the same thing at home and wondered how they could do it.
I proposed to Ministar Edano that there must be the reform of the so-called system
that generated electricity is distributed to homes
through the transmission line.
I also proposed him to expand retail market liberalization
on which debate must continue at this very moment
and to assist the affected areas by means of renewable energy.
Setagaya-ku has interchange with Minami-Sanriku Town and Minami-Soma City, for example,
and was determined to seek such institutional reform. These are activities so far.
Something like that at the moment.
Thank you, Mayor Hosaka.
As the last panelist, we would like Mis Tamiya to introduce herself
and to tell us about activities these days.
My name is Mayumi Tamiya and I came from Akita Prefecture.
Thank you for inviting me.
First, I would like to introduce the situation regarding renewable energy in Akita Prefecture.
When I tried to arrange all prefectures in the country
in abundance or potential of renewable energy,
I found potential of renewable energy of Akita Prefecture
is so big that it was the second place excluding Hokkaido.
Firstly it includes wind because very strong wind blows
in the coast of Akita Prefecture, and geothermal.
It also contains biomass of abundant forest resources
and the other biomass such as rice straw and rice husk because
agriculture is also very popular in Akita Prefecture.
Although winter is long actually, the sun shines strongly in summer.
So solar PV has a very big potential. It is said at the prefectural level
that they consider to send electricity generated by renewables
directly to Tokyo in inter-regional cooperation.
I will talk about the situation of the region's population.
As I've looked at look at the numbers at hand,
the population of Akita Prefecture was 1.1 million in 2008.
Almost 10,000 people are declining every year.
Increasing decline of population has continued,
such as one municipality disappears every year.
Rapid decline of population and aging are progressing.
Of course, There are some people who are very worried
about the survival of the village.
I returned to Akita two years ago after working in Tokyo
in the environment-related sector.
One of the big reason that young people are not able to return is the fact that
there aren't sufficient jobs for young people even if they want to do so.
Now I would like to talk about my energy-related business activities.
In order to connect the regional industries with consumers,
we are trying to make proposals with original products of new design
using regional resources such as food or forestry resources
in cooperation with designers and creators.
The sake industry in Tohoku area as a whole
was severely impacted after the earthquake of March 11 last year.
There were a lot of 'kuramoto', sake breweries,
which were threatened to be out of business
under the influence of the accident of Fukushima nuclear plant.
In these circumstances, there was an idea
among the people especially among kuramoto in Akita Prefecture
to organize an event to talk about sake
and to hear from kuramoto.
Some kuramoto wanted to talk abount energy as well as sake.
I was happy to coordinate to ask Mr. Tetsunari Iida of the ISEP
to appear at the talk event.
I don't think many people are quite interested both in sake and in such things
like survival of sake and renewable energy.
By combining them together, we managed to create a place
where sake lovers could think about renewable energy and also
where people interested in renewable energy could drink sake for the first time.
I might have contributed to it a bit.
In this kind of relationships we started the seminar last month
mainly in Akita City in Akita Prefecture to learn
how to expand the regional ownership of renewable energy.
It has just begun. It really has. This is the situation right now.
Thank you, everybody.
I would like to have some comments from Mr. Gsänger
concerning the four stories up to now.
He mentioned earlier that there were also various types of citizen windmills.
Could you comment on this as well?
I want to go further into discussion.
It was mentioned in the first session today that it was a matter of people.
The theme of the first session was "Vision and Realization".
In order to think something and to achieve it, we have to think
who and how to do it and how to involve people.
The theme of this session is "Ownership and Public Participation".
I think however that there is considerable overlap between the two.
It is still quite worthwhile to hear about each and every case.
So I want to do so even if we have to repeat.
I would like to present these three as the themes of today.
Firstly, difficulty and significance of public participation
which has been discussed much in the first session.
It is prone to talk a beautiful story when we mention public participation however,
we want to share their experience in various processes until it will be achieved.
Secondly, the importance of human resources and networks
which were also discussed in the first session.
Can you show the power point?
I talk with a lot of people at various meetings in different places like this.
In every successful case there was always the person at the very front,
like the one who is standing in front of all the rest in this figure
who is dedicating 100% of time and passion of life of his or her own.
But there must be the ones
who have been helping him or her from behind
such as bankers, for example, who are not in front.
People of municipality does not come in front either
and does not do with 100% but support from behind.
Then there are others further behind who help him or her with 10%,
like the ones who have different professions
or the domestic workers
who help him or her in their spare time.
And much further behind, come also the ones
who are using 1% of their own time and money.
I think the connection like this is also very important.
Hopefully I want to hear about not only the ones in front
but also the human resources behind the scene,
like such a person was unexpectedly helpful.
Thirdly, it can not be done only by the strength of will.
It can be probably done with the strength of will in most cases
to a certain extent, but not in some cases.
Then we need mechanisms to help people who are willing to make it done.
So what can be done by the government or how can the government help?
We want to hear on these three points.
Please turn off the powerpoint.
Firstly, the significance and the difficulty of public participation.
There are different perceptions towards public participation.
So tell us your thought about public participation
followed by the significance and the difficulty.
I want to hear about raw experience as much as possible
and it is much appreciated if it is a lively and compelling story.
I think you inform us about it briefly in about a couple of minutes.
A difficult question, though, but as mentioned earlier,
a hundred people think in a hundred different way, I think.
This is absolutely so.
Even though we share the same goal to spread the renewable energy,
I think each and every person surely thinks differently.
I think renewable energy is also an important regional public goods.
Tons of people in the region, local citizens,
are not only aware of it. It is really not.
If I happen to be the one in front,
what I think I have to do by doing this
is to have them know it and notice
that it is to exploit the important resources of their own.
I think I have to do that but they are not quite aware of it.
That's what I have found difficult.
Professor Maruyama, please.
Speaking of the difficulties of public participation,
it is terribly time-consuming.
In order to form a consensus, or before that,
what people are thinking for example basically?
it is a time-consuming process to know it itself.
So that is a terribly difficult point.
And of course people are not always favorable to us
and there are difficulties in that sense.
Difficulty and significance are two sides of coin.
We can not to tell what people think important without asking them directly.
In my previous case, our aim is to help the promotion
of the area with a windmill.
We may not know what they really want
without listening to them over a decent time and effort.
Finally I found that they are happy with windmills
only if it does help their agriculture
even though windmills mean nothing to them.
I would not have known that without doing it.
According to the network mentioned earlier,
the part of 50%, in other words,
the mechanisms that support operations such as
the finance, the maintenance or the development,
I think they are very important. Those who are supposed
to support the business are often doing it by themselves actually.
Rather than helping the person in front
who are trying to promote the region from behind,
they themselves are doing the business.
The fact that such projects are increasing,
it is quite a difficult problem.
We will talk it later. Thank you.
According to Mr. Takemoto from Bizen City
who paneled in the first session,
there were people who listen to him by no means.
In that case, all he did was just to listen to anything they say.
You would find the path to follow by doing so, he said.
I think that what Professor Maruyama said
was meant to be exactly the same thing.
Next, Mayor Hosaka, please.
Setagaya-ku has a population of 880,000 people,
but I think it now probably exceeds 90 million.
It is very populous, though.
This is a large power consumption area.
Its residents' awareness of the electricity is very high.
We decided to buy electricity from PPS
slightly cheaper than from Tokyo Electric Power Company.
There are also a considerable number of such people in this area
who want to buy renewable energy power in their houses
or in apartments as a whole where he or she lives
or wanted to buy in the joint purchase if possible.
The strength we think we have as a municipality is trust.
I'm willing to open a window of opportunities
taking advantage of this trust.
We have launched a regional forum
that promotes the use of renewable energy.
This is a framework which includes all financial institutions,
all universities, which present in the wards,
agricultural cooperative which we actually have in Setagaya-ku
and various co-ops as well.
On one hand, there are people
who want to do the business of renewable energy
which might be mainly solar PV panels and solar thermal panels in Setagaya-ku
or might be in the form of bulk purchase to spread it.
On the other hand, we would like to support and cheer up the disaster areas
such as Akita Prefecture or Nagano Prefecture, for example,
who are trying to launch renewable energy power business
as employment measures as well,
by purchasing their electricity selectively.
I think these two are our mainstream at the moment.
The local government should rather provide the precise information
than become a business principal.
I think information is very important at this moment
because it's not obvious yet actual and
particularly detailed condition of feed-in tariffs.
We think from the government's perspective that we will support
the spread of renewable energy as a whole
while holding forums or symposiums frequently
which citizens can access freely.
Thank you.
I think only the cases of small municipalities are often discussed
at a symposium like this to promote renewable energy.
I believe that you have been really motivated to hear Søren
in the first session.
I think you might not be able to find what to do
when you come home in Tokyo.
I think that was often the case up to now.
I think a lot of things are visible recently what you can do
even you live in urban areas as Mayor Hosaka mentioned.
He said they propose those things playing a modest role
behind the scene in a decent manner
rather than playing the lead, I think. Thank you.
Then, Ms Tamiya, please.
We will talk a very fresh story.
We began learning the concept of "Community Power" in Akita
receiving lectures by people from ISEP.
We learned that benefit of projects of renewable energy would rather go
to companies of large capital
headquartered in Tokyo or overseas than fall in the local communities
without this concept of community power even if there is potential much.
We noticed that large companies withdraw if economy worsens
and we loose employment even we have attracted them.
We began noticing that the same thing would happen
without implementing the concept of "Community Power"
and that we need local ownership.
This kind of discussion begins to come out especially on wind power
but the leaders of the discussion are often much larger senior
perhaps because the whole communit is aging.
Assuming that the average age of the team are the age of 60's now,
I consider that the main leaders would be in their 70's
when the business starts successfully in something like ten years time.
I have a sense of crisis that the 30's would have to work
when I imagine the year 2050.
A lot of people have been increasingly coming back strangely in sync
whom I can share this sense of crisis with.
They don't know much about renewable energy first
but I find their motivation is high
when we have the study session or town planning.
I do not know what can be done right now
but I am trying to involve people younger than me as many as possible
while learning and sharing information with them.
I have a big concern that the form of community power
would be completely different and that it would be determined
by the direction in which the leaders choose.
I am very grateful to receive this opportunity like this,
but the best and newest models in the world
would not perhaps work and even could not to be imitated as they are.
So there must be a lot of discussions and twists and turns,
and even conflicts, which I really don't want to call them so.
I think we have to take our time
because there are various people with various opinions.
Thank you very much.
I would like Stefan to introduce good examples overseas
of public participation regardless of the size of municipalities.
I think I want to talk about human resources and the network as second question.
Those who panel here might be in front and speak out in various places.
Among their supporters there might be someone whom they found unexpectedly important
or whose help had been very grateful.
I would like them to talk about these people without mentioning their personal names.
I think the business entity doing 100% and the local government are the two important actors, of course.
Who comes up in addition? This might be the key people in the administration of course.
I think it can be organized into two.
First, this might be a very local story.
When I tried to launch the business with the assistance of many people, I remember,
there were much more people of the opposition including the municipality than those in favor of it.
I was advised to quit it and was informed that it would be impossible.
But there were several people of the region or among my drinking buddy entirely unrelated to this business,
who kindly told me that they would support me if I did it.
I think these words of them boosted my feelings.
Secondly, it is natural that people of the business region work hard when you start it
but Is there anybody who has a wealth of knowledge of renewable energy in the city of 100,000 people?
Or is anyone with such knowledge of legal issues when you try to raise the investment or civil investment?
I am afraid there aren't unfortunately.
A person with such knowledge is or should be always, but in Japan.
I have got the cooperation of those people to be allowed to use their knowledge.
I think that these two above were very important
and they might be the big factors that I might be able to stand in front.
Thank you. When speaking about town revitalization, it is often said that there must be 'Three Actors'.
Outsiders, Young People and a Fool. I am afraid that Mr. Hara might be a Fool in this context.
He would do it despite the opposite of all, it is a Fool.
There must be also those who support from outside like us, Outsiders.
I think that people with young heart in the region would also satisfy the condition of young people above,
actually people are helping him in his office now.
This can be applied to renewable energy projects as to town revitalization. I thought it to hear him.
Professor Maruyama, please.
What I am going to tell you overlaps with the previous story.
People who are expected to play supporting roles of business are very important, I think,
and they often play the lead in Japan rather than supporting roles.
I think it is one of the circumstances that makes the situation has become so difficult.
It might be the case in biomass or small hydro or wind power,
it is often well done up to construction phase,
but not in the following phase, especiall the maintenance and business decision making
as well as managing business risks are often surprisingly neglected.
I think those things are important.
Then I will talk about network and human resources.
Mr. Hara has been doing business locally where he lives in his native town.
I was born in Tokyo and happened to live in Aomori City at the time I stated the project.
The project was in a place called Ajigasawa while I lived in Aomori City away from the site.
Human resources in the regional core city like the prefectural capital are important,
and those networks are being maintained well also in Aomori Prefecture like in Akita Prefecture, I think.
I think it is applicable without exception to all areas that there surely exists such people
who can work for the region focusing on the future of the region rather than self-interest.
Probably it is important to support them creating mechanisms
or in terms of practical business matters.
I think the roles of citizens living in the prefectural capital or universities they are considerably important.
They are described as local public human resources recently.
There are people who can still help in the local community.
Mr. Suzuki of Hokkaido mentioned earlier in the first session
that you should do it anyway,
but those people are surely necessary in business perspective
even if there are the one who dares to do it.
It is desirable this can be done in the region.
Next, Mayor Hosaka, please.
I think you are going to start now, so I would like you to comment
also on the type of human resources you are seeking or on the kind of people you want to find.
It is not yet obvious that the Japanese society is either changed at a first glance
after the nuclear accident and the earthquake of March 11
but I think it is because the next thing has not come in the clear form.
I feel the sign of change from the ground up.
because attention to the regional forum of renewable energy I mentioned earlier is very high.
Since I have been active as a politician close to NPOs or civic movements,
I think that the achievements of people who have come to open up
in tough conditions in NPOs or civic movements are quite large.
Among 880,000 residents of Setagaya-ku, there are several kind of people.
In the economic community of the district, for example,
those whose ancestors had actually lived in Setagaya in the Edo era
are influential men representing economic organizations or agricultural cooperatives.
In that sense, there are influential people in the old region of Setagaya.
Interest to renewable energy is high even among those people.
Compared with those mentioned above,
there are new business entities such as co-op, NPOs or citizen businesses,
while some of them lives in Setagaya-ku for thirty or forty years
even they are said to be new,
each of these two are doing business in different shapes sharing the same goal or cooperating each other.
As human resources, those who can surely talk to the people of different positions
not having someone monopolize the information
but providing information fairly are very important.
From the viewpoint of government, in order to provide information impartially
to those of citizen business or of pure business,
government could by no means provide exclusive information to a certain company.
I think this is a huge opportunity regarding the market size.
In that sense those who can connect government
with the business entities and can properly communicate
with people of different social position are fairly important.
Perhaps one of the reasons why Mr. Hara could have done the business until today
is the fact that he lives in Iida City,
There are a lot of people who say good things waving the flag and do not process practical matters.
If there are some who could do both of them and do not seek self-interest,
our society might change drastically.
Thank you. Mentioned in the first session when talking how to spread renewables,
there are opinion leaders even among this audience.
There must be about five opinion leaders among a hundred people today. Søren Hermansen said so.
I think that it is also important to find such people regardless of the scale, if it is small or big.
And he mentioned public mind.
Our director, Mr. Iida writes recently observing Mr. Hara about three requirements of the leader.
First comes the public mind, not to seek self-interest,
next comes a certain proper sense of business
and third comes the confidence earned in the region.
I think these are also important, how to find it. We talk while drinking with something in mind.
I think we have it spread through briefings in various forms. Then Ms Tamiya, please.
You talk about what people you want or you can recruit through Ustream.
I want help from outside among the three which are trust, business sense and public mind is business sense.
It is a practical matter. But I guess a practical matter
can supplement in the business base, so it in fact does not come first.
I think that I want someone who could run with us regardless from which region he or she is.
We can be connected a lot through social networks and it is desirable to spread such a circle, I think.
There was a figure of followers behind their leader shown earlier.
One of the reasons I was invited here, I believe, was that there were greater leaders in the region.
They have been continuously appealing the potential of renewable energies since before 311.
There are three citizen windmills even in Akita Prefecture and they are said to be increasing.
There are those who have been doing such things by very small number of people.
I have been frequently consulting them or talking with them about various dreams such as
building at least one 100% citizen invested windmill even in Akita City since about two years before
The fact I can follow them as their followers along with other younger people, I owe it to them much.
I believe such people are important.
I am running a seminar with a help from young people voluntarily who say it is very interesting.
They are much interested in being connected with the world with the concept of "Community Power"
and they find so-called frontier of knowledge. There are people who are frustrated with daily routine work
and are unhappy with their daily life in Akita and have an intention to go out if they had a chance.
They come and help us. I find they are very much helpful.
Thank you.
There is a phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally".
On the other hand Søren says "Think Locally, Act Locally" and I think they are all linked.
We have about twenty minutes remaining, so we would like to talk about mechanisms.
Besides the business risks which you have to take by yourselves,
there must have been, among the business activities until now,
various problems or obstacles related to the rules of administrative rules both in local and national level.
I think that they have the experience so far in overcoming those above.
I think there must be a wall and there are many ways to overcome
such as smashing from the front or taking a detour.
In addition to these above, I would like to hear about such mechanisms which make things easier
or about mechanisms without which things might be easier.
We have heard much about the role of local governments.
If you have something to add, we are happy to hear that.
I would like to hear from Stefan after hearing from every panelist around.
First we would like to have Mr. Hara.
I think collaboration with the local government is absolutely necessary.
In our case, for example, I think there must have been a lot of discussions in Iida City
when the local government gives us the first permission
to use roofs of public properties for the purpose outside.
The government have permitted us the long-term outside purpose use for twenty years
for the business plan of our fund. I think this was very large.
Iida City did not spend any money actually but supported the citizen business
by such a mechanism. That was pretty significant.
We want to continue working on similar renewable energy projects,
we have to extract business risks and take measures to them
but there are known risks which cannot be measured in business base.
It is also very important for the government
how to make mechanisms to support the business on such risks.
I would like Mayor Hosaka to comment on this.
Speaking of the case of Iida City, we often mention this long-term permission
for twenty years which is the first case.
Do you have experienced the bureaucracy so-called vertical wall?
We have a lot. It will be a concrete example.
Seven years after installation of solar panels,
unexpected re-roofing became necessary which was not originally planned.
We had an agreement to cope with these things like re-roofing
including prior discussions. But that has often not been shared within the municipality.
The department in charge of the building and technical department such as construction department
arbitrarily discussed and informed us right before removing panels.
The new roofing they planned made re-installing of solar panels impossible.
We talk with the government of Iida City to share such information.
Thank you. Next, Professor Maruyama please
The most important rule, I think, the government have to follow,
is that it will not do its own energy business.
With respect to the business like this,
a lot of know-how on the local natural conditions should be accumulated.
This is not only technically but also socially.
It should not do it because officials in charge are reassigned too often.
Mechanisms to encourage competition to promote socially good business widely is another point.
Regarding wind power, impact on the environment, for example,
can be reduced as close to zero as possible if you spend time and money infinitely.
On the other hand, wind power business is no longer viable as a business if you spend time and money infinitely.
There exists a mechanism at the moment
that the business would become profitable if you ease up environmental measures.
It is important to make mechanisms such that making agreement carefully and investigating carefully
make the business more profitable.
For example in Denmark, they ranks each area based on the data present in public.
The area of a certain rank where the assessment is unnecessary
or that of another rank where one can venture but might be opposed.
A decent business entity selects the area of less impact.
It is very important to implement a mechanism to promote good business.
I guess it is also important to support a good energy from the market side such that, for example,
Setagaya-ku won't buy even the renewable energy from the business entity who ignore the region.
In a certain sense Japan has accumulated the experiences of organic farming or thereabouts
and those can be applied quite a lot actually to renewable energies.
Thank you. The local government rather support
from behind by providing information, for example, than do their own business.
And we can support by selecting the good one.
Mayor Hosaka, please.
How disastrous results the local government had brought so far by doing their own businesses,
I often heard it from Mr. Iida.
Subsidy of 100,000 yen for installing one solar panel unit
was actually abolished from this year in Setagaya-ku.
Some people might think that we take one step backwards from viewpoint of budget.
As I said earlier, we will try not to loose trust by always providing accurate and timely information
and by holding regional forums of renewable energy to share such information and by continuing these above.
There will be various deployments quite probably after this coming summer
such as specialty shops of solar panels advertising loudly opened by various companies
who think the opportunities are coming.
Some people say they don't know at all how to determine when and where to buy.
There are some places like a consumer information center in Setagaya-ku.
But for now, they don't have such knowledge to be able to provide fair information
such as what to see to know good and bad points.
We have to train them so that they could point out the check point
or the problem on the time of purchase from consumers' perspective.
From now on we should offer rather space to ambitious people or businesses than subsidies.
We should also offer space to venture companies of energy conservation even it is not of renewable energy.
Space is crucial for companies in the launch phase, especially in the location like Setagaya-ku.
I think if they could do this as an industrial policy and for the utilization of vacant store or vacant house.
There is already a certain activity called Town Planning Trust Fund
and this raises funds for other ambitious businesses or citizens.
I think we can consider a fund to support such citizen businesses in this field.
The administratives mechanism to cover at the time of such disaster
should be built-in in the stage like now.
It is absolutely impossible to cover only a certain field when something disastrous has happened.
So we are happy to hear you from the field and we will have to find a way in various means.
Thank you.
Speaking of information, I am also a part-time lecturer at a university.
I asked to students for ideas of mechanisms to promote renewable energy,
and one of the ideas was a renewable energy electricity version of "Kakaku.com (a price comparison site)."
It is still important to organize information.
What mentioned at the end might become the renewable-energy-related town planning.
It is very important because it could become the opportunity to remove the vertical wall.
Lastly, Ms Tamiya, please.
We don't have a direct relationship much with local governments yet.
I think it might be a challenge in the future we have to accept.
But I think municipalities which happen to have mayors like the mayor of Setagaya-ku
who can lead the people in the area could make much progress.
But there are many municipalities which don't have such leaders.
I want to seek good ideas from a variety of people to approach the latter municipalities.
I have spoken as Mayor of Setagaya-ku while ago but I forgot to say something.
I believe there must be many municipalities throughout the country which are preparing something in this field
and people of ISEP are supposed to know the best which municipalities are preparing what.
Basic municipalities have to work together to exchange ideas
from both power producers and consumer sides which are different.
I think a so-called exchange forum could be fairly helpful.
I think we take it as our homework. Thank you.
I would like to hear from Stefan in response to the efforts we have heard until now.
There are mechanisms which support renewable energy projects in the region, for example,
a condition of investments in Denmark that investors must be from local municipalities.
Could you comment on such mechanisms or a role of local governments
to promote local renewable energy projects if any?
Thank you. We have only five minutes remaining.
So please alIow me to cancel the questions from the floor in this session.
Lastly, we have been doing this session with the theme of "Ownership and Public Participation".
I would like to hear someone who have something else to do from now on,
or something in terms of public participation. Is there anyone to speak up?
It is a future outlook.
This might be a plan you want to do, or the next business or project.
Is this too difficult all of a sudden?
Do you have anything, Mr. Hara?
In this fiscal year, we have expanded so-called zero yen system a little beyond Iida City
and I hope we could promote this across the region of south Shinshu.
Until now in case with subsidies or using so-called zero yen systems with no subsidies,
it has been limited to individual housing.
After this coming July when feed-in tariffs begins,
we are going to try so-called distributed megawatts system
which several sites collectively generate megawatts in cooperation with the leading companies of the region.
That is the goal at the moment.
At the start of feed-in tariffs finally, I think we will try a lot of things
to increase momentum taking advantage of the timing at least in Setagaya-ku.
It includes Symposiums held by the private sector.
Of course, what we are talking here is quite hard for general residents to grasp precisely.
The most obvious point is the fact that the municipal office is connected
to the electricity company other than Tokyo Electric Power Company.
This made people think whether they might be able to do the same.
We are just asking the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
to let us do the test model case of joint purchasing of renewable energy
which might be just an experimental project ahead of schedule.
If it becomes visible that general households elaborate how to choose electricity
and eventually choose green power, it would spreads out fast.
We will do our best because I think that wall is also a little thick.
In this session we have received feedback from a variety of positions in a variety of information about cases.
On the figure shown at the beginning of the session, there are people like Mr. Hara and Professor Maruyama
who dedicate a hundred percent.
And there are also those who support from behind and there were a wide variety of positions,
of various professions in a variety of relationships.
It is possible not because they are in smaller municipalities.
They also have difficulties to some extent
and have been done amazingly. On the other hand,
it does not mean that there is nothing we can do because we live in the city.
I think that we could have shown the fact that we have a variety of choice using various information
and that we can participate in various proportion of renewable energy projects in this regard.
Stefan has demonstrated the global trend, then that "Ownership and Public Participation"
affect much not only the flow of money but also that of feeling,
and that the community is very important for the project of renewable energy.
I would like to end this session now. I hope the applause for the participants, please.