November 2013 Regular Press Conference : President Mizuno's Message

• December begins next week, so we are really heading into winter.
• The government’s Supply and Demand Verification Committee has examined the status of electricity supply and demand for this winter throughout the country based on projections supplied by electricity utilities.
• As a result, the government has formally requested energy conservation measures without numerical targets in the Chubu Electric Power area.

(Reference) Period and times for energy conservation as requested by the government

Weekday 9:00 - 21:00
December 2 2013 - March 31 2014
(Except December 30, 31, January 2, 3 )

• I would like to once again explain the supply and demand situation for Chubu Electric Power this winter, although I will be repeating some details that have already been announced.
• First, in terms of one-time peak load this winter, we have assumed:

• A maximum power three-day average of 22,670 MW (in January and February of next year (FY2014))
• A one-time peak load of 23,550 MW (in January and February of next year (2014)), calculated assuming temperatures similar to the severe winter cold of FY2011.

• We reported 24,850 MW as the supply capacity in our service area in January 2014.
• This figure reflects up to 1,940 MW of electric power set aside to provide supplemental power upon requests from other electric power companies that foresee supply shortages, as long as we have the supply capacity to ensure a stable supply in the Chubu Region.
• As a result, we predict that we will have a reserve margin of 8%, the benchmark for stable supply, in relation to the maximum power three-day average, and we are expecting that, even during the winter, customers will maintain electricity demand savings at the 540 MW level.
• We would like to request that our customers continue their efforts to conserve energy this winter, as they have been doing, without unreasonably affecting their daily activities.

• Next, I would like to speak about plan for introduction of Chubu Electric smart meters.
• Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, the power supply and demand situation has been tight throughout the country, and the trend towards energy conservation among customers has grown.
• Against this background, there is a growing social demand for the rapid introduction of smart meters. Smart meters assist in promoting efficient power use by making the status of energy use visible.
• The widespread use of smart meters will enable us to offer our customers the optimum fee menus for energy conservation, and will have the effect of increasing the efficiency of our procedures, and we are therefore pushing ahead with their introduction.
• We explained our plan for the introduction of smart meters at the13th Meeting of the Study Group on the Smart Meter Scheme, which was held today.
• Installation of smart meters has already been completed for our special high-voltage and high-voltage (500 kW and above) customers.
• In the case of medium-sized factories, office buildings, and other high-voltage (less than 500 kW) customers, we began installing smart meters in January 2012, and we are scheduled to be finished by FY2016.
• For small-scale factories, ordinary households, and other low-voltage customers, we intend to begin installation from October 2014 in selected regions, expanding to all regions in July 2015.
• We are responding to demands for the rapid introduction of smart meters by shortening our previously scheduled period for completion of installation for our low-voltage customers by two years and three months, and we are now looking towards completion in March 2023.
• In the future, we will utilize methods, including competitive procurement, in order to reduce the cost of the introduction of smart meters to the greatest extent possible, and we will push ahead steadily with the installation of the units.
• In addition, we will continue to work to provide services that enable our customers to efficiently use power. For example, we will provide a service that makes the fine details of power use at different times of the day visible and introduce more flexible fee menus.

• Next, I would like to speak about conducting of publicly offered research on nuclear safety technologies.
• In the area of research that will contribute to increasing the safety of nuclear power, we publicly called for applications for research projects seeking to realize wide-ranging technologies from new perspectives, and in March this year we selected 13 projects for implementation.
• We have judged that this process enables us to conduct highly concentrated research on new topics, and we would like to continue next fiscal year to make general public offerings of research projects as we did this fiscal year.
• In addition to these general public offerings, next fiscal year we also wish to specify themes related to new technologies that are extremely important to the use of nuclear power into the future, and expand the scale of our research, establishing a new category of special public offerings.
• In the category of general public offerings, the research period for each project will be no more than two years, and the research budget will be five million yen per year. We intend to select around ten projects for implementation each year.
• In contrast, for the category of special public offerings, we will select only one project. This will represent a major project, with a research budget of 100 million yen and a maximum research period of five years.
• In order to enable us to safely use nuclear power into the future, we need fundamental technologies that it will be impossible to realize without the use of large-scale test facilities and the expenditure of time and money. These include, for example, technologies for the treatment and disposal of spent fuel and radioactive substances.
• Up to now, the development of technologies of this type has been the responsibility of universities or government agencies. However, these are technologies that we also wish to realize at the earliest possible stage, and we are therefore, through these special public offerings, seeking to further advance technological development while maintaining cooperation with research institutes.
• We also believe that these initiatives will contribute to fostering the human resources who will oversee nuclear power in the future, and to training them in necessary skills.
• We will announce details of our publicly offered research projects as soon as they have been finalized.
• That concludes my remarks for today.