The Great east Japan Earthquake and the subsequent Tsunami that occurred on March 11 2011 revealed fundamental weakness, which now leads to restructuring and electricity liberalization.

On May 14 2016, Co-op Mie and a local NPO (a regional cooperation research center) held a learning session which was attended by 45 people including participants from the Gifu and Aichi Prefectures, co-op members, officers and employees.

The theme was “electricity liberalization” with Mr. NOBUHIRO Ishii as the resource person. Participants learned about electricity liberalization and how to consider switching electricity. Liberalization of electricity for households began from April 2016, but there’s little understanding by the citizenry about how it works, the impact it has on living, the prospect of new power and retail electricity business, how rate plans differ and the problems in switching power. Mr. Ishii in his lectures provided answers to the stated questions.

He stated that the problems associated with nuclear power plant and global warming cannot be said to be solved with the power liberalization, however knowing the content of the electricity, producing new electric power that is more environmentally-friendly and switching to new power using renewable energy by companies and local governments is very important and highly recommendable.