Japan's Ozu biomass power plant starts operations

The 50MW Ozu biomass power plant in south Japan's Ehime prefecture came on line today, having started construction in June 2022.

It will burn around 200,000 t/yr of wood pellets imported mainly from southeast Asia to generate 350 GWh/yr of electricity. All the electricity generated will be sold to power utility Shikoku Electric Power Transmission and Distribution for 20 years under Japan's feed-in-tariff scheme.

Ozu is operated by a joint venture that is 57.6pc owned by construction company Maeda Kensetsu, 35pc by upstream firm Japex, 6.4pc by Shikoku Electric Power's subsidiary Yonden Business and 1pc held by engineering firm Shinko Denso.

Japex has invested in two 9.9MW biomass power units in Japan's northernmost Hokkaido prefecture, with the Abashiri No.2 and No.3 starting operations in October 2022 and March 2023 respectively. Its 75MW Chofu and 50MW Tahara biomass power plants are currently under construction. Chofu will start in January next year followed by Tahara in April.

By Takeshi Maeda