On October 17, 2005, NEDO began conducting a verification test on a renewable energy supplied “Microgrid”¹ for Hachinohe’s City Hall, Elementary Schools and Junior High Schools.
 Before the testing began, NEDO successfully concluded the “Dispersed Renewable Energy Supply System” as part of the “Regional Power Grid with Renewable Energy Resources: A Demonstrative Project in Hachinohe.” ²
That project, entrusted to Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. (MRI), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and Hachinohe City, utilized approximately five kilometers of private distribution line³ in Hachinohe-City.

1. This project will produce electricity from 100% renewable energy resources, a combination of weather-dependent energy, such as photovoltaic solar panels (PV) and wind turbines (WT), plus gas engines utilizing methane gas from a sewage treatment facility, and a storage battery. This will be the world’s first case of providing electric power using a private distribution line. The maximum total capacity of energy generated by the gas engine, PV and wind turbines will total 710kW.
   
   
2. This Microgrid system steadily provides as much energy as required by the City Hall, Elementary Schools and Junior High Schools located in the verification test area, with minimum adverse impact on the commercial grid. In recent years, this type of “mass implementation of new energy” system has attracted a great deal of attention as an innovative way of supplying energy.
   Through the new control technology that has been developed in this project, energy control will be optimized taking account of planned supply-and-demand as well as economic efficiency. Through this, the electricity supply and heat supply can be provided in the most optimized way. Compared to the energy production and usage before the project was implemented, a CO2 emission reduction of approximately 80% is expected when biomass resource use is included.
   
   
3. During the two year verification period, various data, such as supply capability, quality, cost effectiveness and other related information will be gathered and analyzed, as will economic efficiency and environmental impact. In the last stage of verification, an operational test in which the Microgrid will be operated independently from the commercial grid will be conducted. By using a private distribution line, the electrical power quality in this system can be verified independent of the utility company’s grid.
   
   
4. This project has been adopted as one of the projects under the “Demonstration Project of Regional Power Grids with Various New Energies” (FY2003 – FY2007) conducted by NEDO, in accordance with the New Energy Technology Development Program announced by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Similar projects are running in Aichi Prefecture (2005 World Expo site/ Rinku-Toshi area in Tokoname-City) and in Kyotango City in Kyoto Prefecture.