Beginnings of a 100% Renewable Energy University
Energy conservation and production project develops into President Project 4
In 2013, a Mega-Solar Farm was built on university-owned land in Noda City in Chiba Prefecture. It was the largest Mega-Solar Farm in Japan built by a single university. We qualified for the government's FIT scheme, which supports the introduction of renewable energy, and from April 2014 we began a solar power generation business that sells electricity to TEPCO.
Even before the construction of the Mega-Solar Farm, Dr. HARASHINA Sachihiko, then a professor in the Faculty of Policy Informatics, was alr,eady wondering if it would be possible to make the university a base for the introduction of renewable energy. Therefore, as well as disseminating information from the university, he asked his colleague, Professor AYUKAWA Yurika to start the CUC open lectures at the Marunouchi satellite campus in 2013, with the purpose of stirring up interest within the university. The theme for the first year was 'Considering Sustainable Environment and Energy Policies' (6 lectures).
On assuming the post of the Dean of the Faculty of Policy Informatics in 2014, Dr. HARASHINA decided to hold these lectures every year. A joint seminar combining the seminars of HARASHINA Sachihiko, AYUKAWA Yurika, and SUGIMOTO Takuya was started in the spring of 2014. People from outside the university were also invited to participate, including members of the NPO Eco League, a student organization which compiles the Eco University Rankings. As a result of these activities, we found that, at the time, the amount of energy produced by our Noda Mega-Solar Farm was estimated to be over 60% of the total energy consumed by the university. This led to Dr. HARASHINA issuing a press release on September 4, 2014, announcing these results as well as declaring that, as the Dean of the faculty, he wanted to aim for a 100% renewable energy university. This was the start of the Faculty of Policy Informatics project to study how to achieve a net zero energy campus by offsetting the energy consumed by the university with the energy produced by the Noda Mega-Solar Farm.
In 2015, with the cooperation of external experts, the faculty obtained a subsidy from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to examine the possibility of realizing a net zero energy campus. The energy generation results of the first year at Noda Mega-Solar Farm were found to be equivalent to 77% of the electricity consumed on the Ichikawa campus. As a result, it became clear that, if the remaining 23% could be reduced through energy conservation and production, it would be possible to achieve a net zero energy campus, or RE 100 University through net zero. Therefore, the energy conservation and production project towards a net zero energy campus, which had been carried out mostly by the Faculty of Policy Informatics, was expanded to the whole university.
This activity eventually gained deeper understanding across the university. When, on becoming the President of CUC on March 1, 2017, Dr. HARASHINA proposed it as one of the four President's Projects, the activity to become a 100% renewable energy university started in earnest. This was to offset the energy consumed by the university with its own renewable energy.
