The reinvention of Japan’s power supply is not making much headway

IN THE WAKE of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, an IT expert, a restaurant owner, an agribusiness manager and a sake brewer, all from the afflicted prefecture, hatched a plan. Japan needed to generate more electricity from renewable sources, they believed, so they founded Aizu Electric Power Company to speed the transition. Yamada Jun, the IT expert, became the CEO and travelled to Germany to swot up on renewables. He spent two winters studying the effects of snowfall on solar panels. In 2014 Aizu Electric installed its first solar farm on the edge of a mountain overlooking terraced rice paddies, 125km west of the ruined nuclear plant. “At the time, we were fairly optimistic,” Mr Yamada says.