Japan's Taketoyo biomass co-fired plant delayed further

The 1.1GW coal and biomass co-fired Taketoyo No.5 generation unit, managed by Japan's largest power producer Jera, faces further delays in coming back on line after a fire in January.

Jera today announced safety measures to prevent the same kind of incident that led to the fire but failed to comment on when the unit is expected to restart operations. It has been off line following the fire, linked to exploding dust from wood pellets, according to the company's investigation.

The company aims to resume coal and wood pellets co-firing "as soon as possible", although it has yet to start repairs. Jera also plans to resume burning wood pellets imported from the US and Vietnam.

The company new safety measures include slowing down the speed of wood pellet conveyors to reduce friction, partially installing air pressure conveying facilities dedicated to wood pellets and equipping explosion suppressor systems for injecting fire extinguishing agents. Slowing down the wood pellet conveyors can affect the co-firing rate with coal and biomass, although the electricity output will not change, the company said.

The unit started commercial operations in August 2022 and burned 17pc of wood pellets with coal.

The impact of the closure of the unit because of the incident is estimated to cost more than ¥10bn ($68.5mn) for the 2024-25 fiscal year ending 31 March, with around half of it being replacement fuel costs that are mainly LNG purchases.

By Takeshi Maeda