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Financial instability of Japan's electricity companies
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started in 2007. long before Fukushima. Nov 27, 2012
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Greetings!  
It is often assumed that the financial difficulties of Japan's electricity companies are caused by the shut-down of almost all Japanese nuclear power stations within 13 months of the Fukushima disaster.
This newsletter shows that the financial impact of switching off Japan's nuclear power stations does not seem to be the major contribution to the financial instability of Japan's electricity companies.
However, this newsletter clearly proves that Japan's electricity companies ran into financial instability long before the March 11, 2011 disaster and long before Japan's nuclear power stations were switched off. The financial instability of Japan's electricity companies seem to have started in 2004 - about 7 years before the Tohoku Earth-quake, as shown below. Therefore reform of Japan's electricity industry sector is highly overdue.
Graphics and more details below in this newsletter.
For detailed data and analysis see the 8th edition of our report on Japan's energy and electricity sector.
(Download a free preview copy here)
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 | | Japan's electricity crisis predates the Fukushima disaster by several years |
Financial instability of Japan's electricity companies started with the increase of natural gas payments in 2004:
Japan's electricity industry sector is dominated by 10 regional electricity operators, which to a large extent have the monopolies of electricity business in their regions. In exchange, their profits are calculated as a fixed percentage of costs. However, the figure above shows, that this system had become unstable around 2009 following a strong increase of natural gas costs since 2004. The figure above clearly shows that the net profits of Japan's 10 regional electricity operators started a steady decline since 2007, and dropped firmly into the red in the financial year FY 2010, which ended on March 31, 2011, ie almost entirely before the Fukushima disaster, and about a year before nuclear power stations were switched off in Japan.
This argument shows, that the difficulties of Japan's electricity sector are even more profound than the cut-off of nuclear power stations, and shows that reform of Japan's electricity sector is long overdue. For details read our report on Japan's electrical industry sector. |
 | | Financial trouble of Japan's electricity companies started before Fukushima |
Financial instability of Japan's 10 electricity operators started in FY2007 - several years earlier than the Fukushima nuclear disaster:
This figure shows the combined annual net income of Japan's 10 regional electricity operators for the period FY1999 - FY2011. The figure clearly shows, that combined net after-tax income was extremely stable until 2007, when net income started to drop dramatically, and has been falling ever since, culminating in combined net losses of over US$ 20 billion in FY2011. Losses are expected to increase even further for FY2012.
This figure clearly shows, that the financial instability of Japan's electricity companies started several years earlier than the March 11, 2011 disaster and well before any nuclear power stations were switched off. |
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