Small-Scale Wood-Fuelled Cogeneration Project for Sustainable Development in Kesennuma City, Japan

Ksennuma, a city in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, has abundant forest resources with 70% forest cover. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the utilization of local renewable energy was considered as one of the disaster recovery plan in Ksennuma. The members being responsible for the disaster recovery plan began to rethink the value of local forest for wood biomass energy after the relevant surveys. Correspondingly, the national and local governments started to provide subsidies such as Green Decentralization Reform and decide policies such as Japan's feed-in tariff policy for renewable energy.

This study chooses a local small-scale wood-fuelled cogeneration plant in Kesennuma city as a case study. The objective of this study is to investigate how to promote sustainable development for small-scale wood-fuelled cogeneration projects. We calculate the corresponding total weight of wood fuel for each year and per person per year from 2012 to 2016, respectively. We use questionnaires collected from registrants with wood biomass certification and participants of the forestry training program, from 2012 to 2016. For the questionnaires, we analyze them as follows: i) The respondents of registrants are divided into two types, the registrants already providing thinned wood and the registrants not yet providing thinned wood. We compare the differences on the number and variety of tools and forestry technical, and the number of people who work with them during thinned wood production between the registrants already providing thinned wood and the registrants not yet providing thinned wood. Meanwhile, we analyze the changes in 2014 and 2016 for the registrants already providing thinned wood. ii) We compare with such as the difficulties for thinned wood production between the registrants and the participants. iii) We combine the findings of the questionnaires with field works and interviews from the participants, staffs of the company and the relevant government officials.

The impact elements regarding wood supply are found for small-scale wood-fuelled cogeneration. The results demonstrate that how to make more suitable forestry training programs to meet the needs of local communities. The results also guide the policy-makers and governments to provide support and decide policies to deal with the sustainable development of small-scale wood-quelled cogeneration projects.