| TOP |
| 5th Report of Market Access Ombudsman Council (March 17, 1998) |
1. Complainant: Tokyo Chamber of Commerce
2. Ministry concerned: Ministry of International Trade and Industry
3. Complaint:
Because many shopping centers exceed the 1000KW of the contracted electrical power, they must employ a permanent, full-time chief electrical engineer.
However, in light of the fact that improvements in operations technology and materials used in recent years have increased the reliability of electrical equipment, etc., for facilities for which a chief electrical engineer must be employed, measures should be considered to raise the lower limit of the contracted electrical power from the current 1000KW to 3000KW.
4. Corresponding Policy of the Ministries concerned:
(1) Under the stipulations of the Electricity Enterprises Act, parties establishing electricity-using structures for business purposes must designate a chief electrical engineer, but because of the large financial burden put upon medium- and small-scale consumers for the work of designating a chief engineer, when the work related to supervision of the safety of electricity-using structures is entrusted to a party that meets the specific required conditions, and it is recognized that safety equivalent to that of a place of operation designating a chief electrical engineer has been secured, the pertinent work can then be reduced (non-designation approval) under the regulations of the Electricity Enterprises Act.
In addition, although one chief electrical engineer is to be designated per place of operation, as a rule, the recognition of having one engineer concurrently hold other posts (concurrent post approval) is now under way.
(2) In terms of expanding the ranges targeted for non-designation approval and concurrent post approval, based on a Cabinet decision in March 1996, since September of 1997, the targeted range for non-designation approval has been related to receiving voltage of 7,000V or less (all high-voltage receiving ranges) and that for maximum electrical power to up to 2,000KW.
5. Remarks
The complainant's opinion follows.
"I understand that this is the policy as it now stands."