Japan's factories, department stores and households are bracing for a colder-than-normal winter and may have to cut electricity use as more nuclear plants go offline for maintenance amid the Fukushima disaster.
The government says it won't repeat the mandatory 15 percent cuts in power usage imposed on heavy users in parts of the country in summer. Still, utilities including Kansai Electric Power Co. say they haven't completed assessments of power supply and demand for November through March.
"The power companies will barely meet demand in the winter," said Yu Nagatomi at the government's Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. "The government isn't expected to impose mandatory cuts in usage, but requests to conserve energy will be needed."