Windy Town, Looking to the Sea - Wind Power Generation Project in Konagai Town, Nagasaki Prefecture - 2004

Windy Town, Looking to the Sea - Wind Power Generation Project in Konagai Town, Nagasaki Prefecture - 2004

In the early 2000s, Japan was entering an era in which it was fundamentally rethinking its energy policy. With the Kyoto Protocol about to take effect, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and allowing renewable energy to take root in local communities became a national challenge. Against this backdrop, the small town of Onagaicho, in Nagasaki Prefecture, put its future in the hands of the winds blowing across the Ariake Sea.

The town installed a 300 kW wind turbine manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on a trial basis in 1998, followed in 2000 and 2002 by a 600 kW machine manufactured by Vestas of Denmark, bringing the total output to 1,500 kW. Although initially only a technical challenge, the three units were in full operation by FY 2003, and annual revenue from electricity sales exceeded 20 million yen. The electricity generated was used at the town-run Yamachabana Kogen Picnic Park and herb garden, and the surplus was sold to Kyushu Electric Power Co.

However, the essence of this project goes beyond mere power generation. As an environmental model that combines tourism and education, the town attracts more than 250 visitors a year, and local children learn about the power of wind through observation and study. The people of the town are proud of their windmills, and a shift in attitude toward wind as a resource has been quietly underway. The sight of a small town in a rural area generating its own energy gave hope to the rest of the country.

Around this time, the government's RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) system (Special Measures Law for the Use of New Energy by Electric Utilities) began, and the introduction of renewable energy was beginning to receive institutional support. The efforts of the town of Oshinagai were a practice that anticipated the feed-in tariff (FIT) system that would later be introduced, and it became a pioneer in distributed energy in harmony with the local climate.

Today, in the Konagai area, which has been merged into Isahaya City, the former philosophy of wind power generation has been inherited as a regional energy vision, and the area is being reevaluated as a base for introducing renewable energy along the Ariake Sea coast. The wind still crosses the sea as it always has, and the windmills standing on the hills of that town continue to turn like lighthouses for a sustainable future.