
Osaka-based Nankai Electric Railway will utilize Japan’s self-wheeling scheme for the first time, the company announced on October 8, 2024. Starting from November 2024, the company plans to start supplying power to two of its buildings from a solar power plant it is developing in Wakayama Prefecture.
As part of the project, Nankai expects to self-wheel approximately 6GWh per year to Namba PARKS and Namba SkyO, both office and shopping complexes in Osaka. The company tasked ENERES with generation and demand forecasting and balancing, as well as with helping it execute contracts with necessary stakeholders such as the TSO.
The power plant that will be used for the self-wheeling scheme is the 5.6MWDC/3.7MWAC Nankai Ominedai Solar Power Plant in Hashimoto City, Wakayama Prefecture, which the company first announced this April. It will use LONGi Solar panels and Huawei Power conditioners.
Nankai Electric Railway will also start purchasing power with non-fossil certificates from the same month to cover the portion of the two buildings’s entire power consumption (i.e., including the power used by their tenants) not covered by the self-wheeling scheme.
The self-wheeling scheme allows companies to use the grid to deliver power from their power plants to their off-site facilities without having to pay the renewable power promotion surcharge.