The third call for Japan's natural gas resilience subsidy opened on 25 September and pays up to ¥240mn for blackout-capable gas cogeneration in a building supplied by medium-pressure gas pipes. The call text says it closes once the budget is reached, and it gives no total budget.
Tokyo Brief has reported on an earlier subsidy for blackout-ready gas equipment, in an earlier article. The City Gas Promotion Center, a general incorporated association, handles inquiries for this call. Its stated aim is to improve energy-supply resilience in disasters by subsidizing blackout-capable cogeneration systems (CGS) and gas heat-pump air conditioners (GHP).
What the grant pays
The ceiling depends on the equipment and on how the building receives its gas.
| Equipment | Gas supply | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Blackout-capable CGS | Medium-pressure | ¥240mn |
| Blackout-capable CGS | Low-pressure | ¥60mn |
| Blackout-capable GHP | Not specified | ¥66mn |
The call text states no subsidy rate. It points applicants to the application guidance, the grant rules and the forms on the Center's website, and says an explanatory video is posted there.
Who qualifies
Applicants must be corporations that run a business. They must receive natural-gas-based gas through medium-pressure pipes or low-pressure pipes with improved earthquake resistance, and burn it in the subsidized equipment. Each project must also include a dedicated measuring device to check operating status.
The equipment must sit on the same site as one of two kinds of building. The first is a highly public building: one named in a national or local disaster-prevention plan, or one owned and run by national or local government, a social welfare corporation, a medical corporation or a school corporation. The second is a building that serves as a shelter, including indoor shelters, buildings beside agreed outdoor evacuation sites, stranded-commuter facilities, disaster-time homeward-support stations, and buildings that supply goods to residents under agreements. The review committee can also approve other buildings. Applicants must state the floor area of indoor space the equipment serves in a disaster.
Shelter-type buildings face three further conditions:
- An agreement with a local government, or an equivalent arrangement, which can be anticipated rather than already signed.
- A single CGS unit of at least 25kW. If only GHP is installed, at least two outdoor units with combined cooling capacity of 112kW or more.
- Equipment able to supply at least two of air conditioning, lighting and electrical outlets to the evacuation space during a grid outage.
The call lists the Center's phone number, 03-6435-7692, for inquiries.