TEPCO Power Grid opened bids this week for emergency transmission work across northern Chiba as more than 10,000 households remained without electricity three days after Typhoon Dujuan tore through the Kanto plain. Landslides and downed trees have blocked access to several feeder lines, and the utility warned that restoration timelines depend on road clearance as much as on spare parts.
Why crews cannot reach every pole
Field teams told contractors that standard bucket trucks cannot reach poles sitting behind mud-choked farm roads. TEPCO’s procurement notice covers temporary bypass lines, mobile substations, and tree removal along rights of way that the prefecture has not yet reopened. Several bidders said they are pairing civil-engineering firms with line workers because the bottleneck is access, not transformer stock.
Kanagawa Prefecture still counted dozens of outages Friday, but the concentration of damage in Chiba is what pushed the emergency contract. Prefectural officials said about 2,700 homes lacked running water at one point Thursday, a separate crisis that complicates any plan to energize pumps serving low-lying districts.
Flood control ties into the grid
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said Friday it aims to finish emergency repairs and drainage around Lake Imbanuma within about a week. Breached levees flooded rice paddies and neighborhoods, and the lake stood near three meters Friday morning against a normal level of 2.3 meters. Pumping crews hope to draw water down by Saturday at the earliest, a schedule transport minister Tatsunori Ibayashi repeated at a briefing pledging full government support.
For retailers and factories along the Joban line corridor, the dual outage—power and water—means some plants will stay dark even if transmission returns. Business groups in Chiba asked TEPCO for daily maps of restored blocks so suppliers can stage deliveries without idling refrigerated trucks.
What bidders are pricing in
Construction executives said quotes must include standby crews for the Sports Day long weekend, when another typhoon pair in the Pacific could bring high waves to eastern coasts. TEPCO has not published a firm “all clear” date; it said inspection teams are walking lines where helicopters cannot land. Winning bidders are expected to start mobilizing within 48 hours of award.
The typhoon left 11 confirmed deaths in Chiba and Kanagawa, with several people still missing. Recovery spending will eventually flow through disaster relief accounts, but the immediate auction is about getting electrons to evacuation centers and hospitals first. Any household still dark heading into next week will intensify political pressure on both the utility and the Takaichi government’s infrastructure agencies.
Insurance and liability
Property insurers said business-interruption claims from Chiba manufacturers will hinge on documented outage hours, pushing factories to install diesel gensets even when grid power is days away. Contractors bidding TEPCO work must carry elevated liability riders because energized lines sit beside floodwater.