Kinko Kogen Hotel, a hillside resort in southern Kyushu, is trying something unique in Japan -- supplying its own electricity by building a huge windmill on a nearby mountaintop.
The 330 million yen project, the first of its kind in Japan, is expected to go on line in early October.
According to Shinzaburo Shinozaki, president of Kinko Kogen, the hotel hopes to recover the cost of the project, partly subsidized by the government, in four to five years.
Built on the mountaintop 80 meters above the hotel complex, the power windmill is designed to generate 1,300 kw, enough electricity for a community of 430 families.
Shinozaki said the windmill will have enough electricity not only for the hotel and an adjoining golf course but is expected to produce a surplus the hotel plans to sell to the local utility.
The Kinko Kogen windmill is the latest outcome of government deregulation of Japan's electric power industry.
Shinozaki said the hotel's owner, Yoshio Kariya, 80, came up with the idea supply his hotel with its own electricity after seeing big windmills during a trip to the United States.
After a two-year feasibility study, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry threw in its support by giving a 100 million yen grant to Kinko Kogen to develop the windmill project.
While the ministry currently backs 28 other wind power projects in Japan as part of the government's search for new sources of energy, a majority of these projects are promoted by business interests with the aim of selling power to the utilities.
Kinko Kogen, the only hotel in Japan benefiting from the government largess, sees the project beyond the scope of electric power.
"We believe the windmill will become a new tourist attraction," Shinozaki said.