May 24 - Jiji Press English News Service

The Japanese government plans to cooperate with the private sector to promote wider use of so-called green electricity, generated by natural energy like wind and sunlight.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy will set up in June an organization, provisionally called Green Energy Partnership, involving municipalities, private firms, citizens' groups and individuals.

Specific projects under consideration include the release of the top rankings of buyers of green power certificates, which are issued by Japan Natural Energy Co. based on third-party certification of records of power generation by natural energy, agency officials said. The certification is granted by the Green Power Certification Council.

The green power certificate gives buyers proof of their use of electricity generated by natural energy, which also includes biomass but excludes nuclear power and large-scale hydropower, even if the buyers do not actually uses such green electricity.

Green power certificate issuance jumped to the equivalent of 114 million kilowatt-hours in fiscal 2006, which ended in March 2007, from 1.15 million kilowatt-hours in fiscal 2001, the initial year of the certificate system, according to the government-affiliated Institute of Energy Economics of Japan.

An increasing number of companies and nongovernmental organizations are buying the green power certificates to highlight their proactive attitudes toward environment protection.

Leading buyers in fiscal 2006 included Sony Corp. , Nomura Holdings Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. , according to data compiled by the institute.

But the certificate system is not recognized widely among households and their purchases remain very small.

In order to encourage buying, the agency is considering a reduction of the minimum purchase unit of the certificates, the officials said.

Also being studied is the introduction of a program to honor the contribution of businesses and individuals to the promotion of certificate purchases, the officials said.END

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