Chubu Electric Power Company, third largest utility In Japan, has requested power supplies from seven other utilities to meet rising demand, according to Reuters.
The demand spike has been caused by cold weather and insufficient output from solar generation systems.
Chubu said in a statement that it had received up to 1.05GW of power from the other utilities.
“We are also ramping up one of our coal-fired power plants and one of our LNG (liquefied natural gas) power stations as electricity demand for heat increased due to lower-than-expected temperatures and cloudy weather caused lower-than-expected output from solar power,” a spokesman at Chubu Electric said.
The power providers include Tohoku Electric Power, TEPCO Power Grid, a unit of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Hokuriku Electric Power, Hokkaido Electric Power, Chugoku Electric Power, Shikoku Electric Power and Kyushu Electric Power, he said.
“We may start up some old fossil fuel power plants that had been mothballed to meet higher demand,” the spokesman said.
The last time the company needed power from other utilities was in February 2017.
