EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

TEPCO's poor publicity led to metropolitan mess

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Even allowing for the crisis caused by a power supply shortage, Tokyo Electric Power Co. deserves strong blame for fumbling its explanations to the public.
We refer to the planned power outages that TEPCO originally announced would start Monday morning in areas it serves, including Tokyo and six prefectures in the Kanto region plus Yamanashi Prefecture and parts of Shizuoka Prefecture.
Under a planned power outage, the areas and hours of blackouts are decided in advance to ensure public awareness, thereby preventing chaos from occurring in times of rolling blackouts. The plan basically calls for TEPCO to divide its service areas into five groups and suspend the power supply to each group for three hours a day. The company plans to continue the planned power outages until the end of April.
Given that its power supply capacity has dropped due to the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku region along the Pacific coast on Friday, it is understandable for TEPCO to decide on suspension of power supply at an early time out of fear that otherwise an even larger-scale blackout would occur.
Complete blackouts have hit many areas of the Tohoku region. Therefore, some people assert that the users of power supplied by TEPCO should endure inconvenience to a certain degree.
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Outage plans inconsistent
But it is problematic that the company's announcement of areas slated for power outages was delayed until Sunday night, when the outages were meant to be implemented on Monday. But when Monday morning came, the company changed its plans again and again, bringing about confusion and chaos.
One factor behind the confusion could be that the government and TEPCO began the planned power outages without sufficient consultations with the local governments and transportation companies concerned. This falls far from what could be called "planned" power outages.
Some people say the government delayed TEPCO's announcement of rolling blackouts because it wanted to call for the people's cooperation ahead of the company. If this is true, the government must bear a heavy responsibility.
In implementing planned power outages next time, the government and TEPCO should cooperate to promote coordination with the organizations concerned. It is necessary to come up with detailed plans and announce them as quickly as possible.
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Power output below capacity
TEPCO normally has an electricity generation capacity of about 50 million kilowatts during the spring season. But its No.1 and No. 2 nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture stopped working in the aftermath of the earthquake. Many of its thermal power stations along the Pacific coast also suspended their operations.
The operation of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture has been held at far below full capacity since the 2007 Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake.
For this reason, TEPCO's power generation capacity was held to 31 million kilowatts Monday. Demand, on the other hand, was estimated at 41 million kilowatts, causing a shortage of 10 million kilowatts. This forced the company to implement the planned power outages.
The plan was applied without exception to operators of railways, which are a means of transportation for commuters and students, and hospitals with a large number of patients. Couldn't TEPCO treat such organizations as exceptions because their functions are indispensable for people's lives?
TEPCO plans to carry out planned power outages again this summer when the electricity demand will rise sharply. It is vital to establish by that time a system to enable an interchange of electricity between power companies.
Electric power companies in eastern and western Japan use different frequencies. Therefore, exchanges of electricity between the two blocks are not easily accomplished. The power companies must begin studying measures to drastically enhance their capacity for frequency conversion.