Part6 The President of Ashikaga Institute of Technology (A.I.T)
           Prof.Izumi USHIYAMA
          “Collaboration and Networking”
           Towards a collaboration system between HEMS and Small Wind Power Generation 

 

 In Japan, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has introduced a Feed-in Tariff Scheme (FIT) from 1 July 2012.

Wind power is a noted renewable energy along with solar power. When we say windmills, Japanese people image these huge objects. However, this time we interviewed a wind power expert about possibilities of using small wind powers as Smart House HEMS.

 

*more details about Feed-in Tariff Scheme (FIT)
http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/english/index.htm

 

[[Biography]]

Izumi USHIYAMA

He was born in Nagano in 1942. He graduated from Graduate School of Science and Technology at Sophia University, Ph.D., Doctor of Engineering.
His specialty is energy conversion engineering. He has been engaged in research on renewable energy, mainly wind power generation. He has been appointed as NEDO Offshore Wind Power Generation Chairman, NEF Wind Power Chairman, Green Power Authentication Mechanism Chairman.
He has been the president of Ashikaga Institute of Technology since 2008.
He’s published more than 20 books about Energy or Wind Power.

 

 

 （Prof. Ushiyama and Prof. Nishizawa at A.I.T)

Address:326-8558 268-1 Omae-cho, Ashikaga-shi, Tochigi
E-mail:

 

Wind and Light Square at A.I.T Research Center

http://www2.ashitech.ac.jp/crc/square/index.html

 

– a noted wind power expart  

Q: Could you please tell us the possibilities of small wind power generation?

 I have heard HEMS Certification Support Center works with solar power, storage battery, electric vehicles. These technologies are progressing quite fairly in Japan, I think. I’m sure small windmill’s usage will increase in the future.

Till now, large windmills have been mainly researched. However because of FIT, small windmills’ power is also sold with high price（※1）. We are now making a system of Certification for Wind Turbines(※2) for FIT.

※1:For less than 1:20 kW:57.75 JPY / kWh

※2:more details about Certification for Wind Turbine

http://www.classnk.or.jp/hp/ja/activities/windmill_attestation/index.html

 

Q: How is wind power used?

We need both the wind and the light. Because we can get solar power at night, we have to turn to the wind at night, which does not care for light or darkness. So we will have to research further about taking advantage of wind and light in the future.

In A.I.T, we are researching a system called Triple Hybrid. The triple means wind, light and another stable energy.

For example, we generate electricity by turning wood bio matter into gas form. The concept of the system is to get power whenever it is needed. If we combine stable energy sources such as small hydro, we can generate stable electricity source only by using renewable energy. We can especially use small hydro effectively because Japan has around 30,000 rivers.

 

– Researches of efficient small wind turbines are progressing. Is the windmill connection with HEMS coming soon?

 

（Prof. Ushiyama and Prof. Nishizawa in the lab of high technology small windmill at A.I.T）

 

Q: What do you think about small wind power generation as Smart House HEMS?

I think we can use wind and light. But we need a windmill which can move with weak wind and can provide electricity above a certain level. Wind power generation is basically unstable because wind is not strong in the big cites.

Then we at A.I.T, are researching efficient small wind turbine which can generate power even with weak wind. We have found that the wing shape must be different between large windmills and small ones. In fact, at wind speed of 6m/s, the high performance result of 35.8% of the large windmill was obtained in (※) the results of the wind tunnel experiments.

– More details for the research (PDF)  *Only Japanese

 

Q: We will make the system in which Small wind turbines are connected to HEMS Certification Support Center. Please tell us what you expect for the Center in the future.

“Collaboration and Networking” is the keyword. Let’s make it possible together.

(Prof. Ushiyama at A.I.T)

Thank you very much for the interview.