Japan’s largest solar power project, a 231 MW facility, which is coming up in Setouchi City is jointly financed by Okayama Kuni Umi Asset Management, GE Energy Financial Services and Toyo Engineering through Setouchi Future Creations.
GE Energy holds a 60 percent share in the project. The project is expected to be commissioned by 2019.
The facility will sell produced power to Chugoku Electric Power under a 20-year power purchase agreement while Chudenko Corporation provides operations and maintenance services.
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For this $1.1 billion project, a loan of $867 million is provided by Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking on a non-recourse project finance basis by a syndicate of Japanese banks, including local financial institutions.
Toyo Engineering and Shimizu Corporation will begin the installation of photovoltaic plant in November.
In addition to the Setouchi solar project, the mega-solar power plant in Mito-city Ibaraki has started construction of a woodchip biomass fuel power plant in Kawaminami-cho. Now a wind farm in Nakadomari-cho is under planning process, contributing to the Ideal Region Development with renewable energy, said, Yasuyo Yamazaki, president, CEO, Kuni Umi Asset Management.
Japan’s regulatory policies make solar power attractive, diversifying the power generation sources. The Kuni Umi project expands the international and renewable energy footprints, which already include investment commitments of $1.8 billion in equity and debt in more than one gigawatt of solar power projects worldwide, said, Sushil Verma, MD, Japan business leader, GE Energy Financial Services.
In addition, GE has plans to launch its inverter series in Japan market with this project. It will introduce GE 1 MW Brilliance Solar Inverter, which will replace transformers resulting in higher conversion efficiency and performance.
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In July GE’s vice chairman stated that $3.5 billion pipeline of investment in green energy in Australia will face hazard due to the RET changes. According to GE financing arm that owns a $9 billion clean energy portfolio, if either of the review’s two options for large-scale renewable energy target reform are implemented it will initiate unworkable policy.
In another sparking issue, two Japanese utilities have stated that they had their fill of renewable energy, a drive that may force leaders to let nuclear reactors back on line.
Since the 2011 tsunami, Japan has invested heavily in renewables and in solar power. If all the solar projects that Japan has licensed to date came to fruition, it would have total capacity of 68 gigawatts.