|
25 July 2005 - Newcomers to the retail electricity industry are turning to the mutual supply of surplus power to maintain high facility operation rates and lower costs.
Marubeni Corp.has agreed to buy 12 000 kilowatts from Teijin Fibers Ltd.'s power generation facility in Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture. Several thousand kilowatts of this amount will be supplied to Daio Paper Corp. when the 30 000 kw power generation facility at the papermaker's factory in Shikoku Chuo, Ehime Prefecture, shuts down for regular maintenance.
When this factory's power generation facility generates surplus power, it will be supplied to Marubeni for sale in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions.
Nippon Steel Corp. has been buying 50 000 kw from an independent power company affiliated with Toshiba Corp. In addition to selling the electricity retail, Nippon Steel also supplies it to other independent power companies, including Summit Energy Corp., a Sumitomo Corp. group firm, and Ennet Corp., an affiliate of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. and city gas companies.
In turn, Summit Energy and Ennet sell the power to their retail customers in the Kyushu region. This deal allows the two firms to procure power 10-20 per cent cheaper than buying it from electricity companies.
An exchange for trading electricity was established in April, but the trading volume has been too low to satisfy electricity retailers' power needs.
The main customers of independent power companies include department stores and office buildings. Aside from increasing the mutual supply of surplus power, some independent providers are teaming up to jointly build power plants.
Source: Asia Pulse
| 
Articles 
| View all PennWell sites | View all PennWell events
Add RSS Feed
