A "What If?" Dialogue on Solar Power Generation on a Golf Course - May 2004

A "What If?" Dialogue on Solar Power Generation on a Golf Course - May 2004
At the time of 2004, more than a decade after the collapse of Japan's bubble economy, the country was facing the challenge of restructuring land use. In particular, golf courses, which had proliferated rapidly in the 1990s, had fallen into financial difficulties due to the bursting of the membership bubble and shrinking demand for corporate entertainment, and there were many cases of them falling into disuse across Japan. At the same time, the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol made the reduction of greenhouse gases an international obligation, and the introduction of renewable energy became a national issue. Against this backdrop, the idea of utilizing vast tracts of land on golf courses for solar power generation presented itself as both bold and realistic.

The article begins by asking the reader, "Why don't you put solar power generation on a golf course that doesn't attract any customers?" and goes on to calculate a specific example of installing a 10kW system on a 14,000 square meter per hole area. While presenting a power output of 1 million kWh per year and an electricity value equivalent to 24 million yen, and encouraging the reader to imagine the fairway as an energy field, the article also clarifies practical issues such as the huge initial investment, power sales contracts, and institutional restrictions.

This "what if" idea was pioneering at the time, but later became a reality as examples of closed golf courses being converted to mega-solar construction spread across the country. The vision of the future that the article presented was a proposal that offers a glimmer of hope for Japanese society as it searches for a balance between idle assets and environmental issues.