{"id":4783,"date":"2021-03-26T12:06:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T12:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4783"},"modified":"2021-03-26T12:06:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T12:06:17","slug":"japans-surging-electricity-prices-are-a-warning-for-asian-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4783","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s surging electricity prices are a warning for Asian countries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n” Households across Japan are likely to get hit by massive electric bills this month, after the price of wholesale electricity there spiked<\/a> from about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour in December to an unprecedented peak of more than $1<\/a> on Jan. 7. “
…
“The spike was partially a pandemic-related anomaly. But it was also an ominous sign of things to come for Asian countries working to curb their carbon footprints.
The immediate cause of the spike was bad weather. Japan was hit by an unseasonable cold spell, sending electricity demand in some regions to 10-year highs<\/a> as homes and businesses cranked up electric heating systems. That in turn caused a sudden shortage of natural gas, which provides 20% of the country\u2019s power<\/a> and is entirely imported in liquid form (LNG) on ships. Despite the demand, several of Japan\u2019s biggest utilities<\/a> were forced to roll back power plant production<\/a>, as the price of gas more than quadrupled<\/a> from the beginning of December, hitting levels 1,000% higher<\/a> than the record lows seen during pandemic lockdowns in May. A similar story played out in China and South Korea, turning the gas crunch into a regional issue<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timing couldn\u2019t have been worse: LNG was already tight as export facilities in several of the countries that normally supply it to Asia\u2014particularly Australia, Qatar, Malaysia, and Indonesia\u2014had experienced an unusual cluster of concurring outages in the preceding months<\/a>.”
…
“as more Asian economies put more of their eggs in the LNG basket, they become increasingly exposed to sudden wild price swings. Supply disruptions in LNG exporting countries appear likely to continue in the near future<\/a> as the global economy recovers from the pandemic”
…
“Part of the solution, Tsafos said, is for the Asian LNG market to embrace more steady, long-term contracts rather than the on-demand purchases that are the norm today. Delivering gas by ship on demand, instead of by a fixed pipeline, allows buyers and sellers more flexibility in theory, but becomes a problem when too many buyers are clamoring for the same shipment. Asian countries also need a better network for managing the regional flow of LNG, and will have to continue investing in alternative clean energy systems, including renewables and grid-scale energy storage, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no real point, if you\u2019re aiming for decarbonization, to go for an expensive, volatile fuel like gas,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cYou\u2019re better off looking at alternatives, and that\u2019s the conclusion a lot of these countries will come to.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/qz.com\/1965644\/japans-surging-power-prices-are-a-warning-for-asian-countries\/?utm_source=YPL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

” Households across Japan are likely to get hit by massive electric bills this month, after the price of wholesale electricity there spiked from about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour in December to an unprecedented peak of more than $1 on Jan. 7. ”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The spike was partially a pandemic-related anomaly. But it was also an ominous sign of things to come for Asian countries working to curb their carbon footprints.<\/p>\n

The immediate cause of the spike was bad weather. Japan was hit by an unseasonable cold spell, sending electricity demand in some regions to 10-year highs as homes and businesses cranked up electric heating systems. That in turn caused a sudden shortage of natural gas, which provides 20% of the country\u2019s power and is entirely imported in liquid form (LNG) on ships. Despite the demand, several of Japan\u2019s biggest utilities were forced to roll back power plant production, as the price of gas more than quadrupled from the beginning of December, hitting levels 1,000% higher than the record lows seen during pandemic lockdowns in May. A similar story played out in China and South Korea, turning the gas crunch into a regional issue. <\/p>\n

The timing couldn\u2019t have been worse: LNG was already tight as export facilities in several of the countries that normally supply it to Asia\u2014particularly Australia, Qatar, Malaysia, and Indonesia\u2014had experienced an unusual cluster of concurring outages in the preceding months.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“as more Asian economies put more of their eggs in the LNG basket, they become increasingly exposed to sudden wild price swings. Supply disruptions in LNG exporting countries appear likely to continue in the near future as the global economy recovers from the pandemic”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Part of the solution, Tsafos said, is for the Asian LNG market to embrace more steady, long-term contracts rather than the on-demand purchases that are the norm today. Delivering gas by ship on demand, instead of by a fixed pipeline, allows buyers and sellers more flexibility in theory, but becomes a problem when too many buyers are clamoring for the same shipment. Asian countries also need a better network for managing the regional flow of LNG, and will have to continue investing in alternative clean energy systems, including renewables and grid-scale energy storage, he said.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no real point, if you\u2019re aiming for decarbonization, to go for an expensive, volatile fuel like gas,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cYou\u2019re better off looking at alternatives, and that\u2019s the conclusion a lot of these countries will come to.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[913,235,420,1234,1183],"class_list":["post-4783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-japan","tag-natural-gas","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4784,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4783\/revisions\/4784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}