
On November 16, 2024, Enshu Forest Energy LLC, a joint venture led by the biomass developer and equipment distributor Forest Energy, commissioned the Enshu Forest Energy Biomass Power Plant in Fukuroi City, Shizuoka Prefecture, owned by Enshu Forest Energy LLC, a joint venture led by Forest Energy, started commercial operation.
The 7.1MW power plant is expected to generate 52.53GWh per year using domestic timber primarily consisting of locally-sourced thinned wood and pruned branches. The generated power will be sold through the feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme, which at the time the project was certified in April 2020, offered a fixed 32 yen/kWh for 2MW+ biomass power plants using thinned wood and 24 yen/kWh for sub-10MW biomass power plants using general woody biomass.
Project finance for the power plant was arranged by The Shoko Chukin Bank which, alongside The Shimizu Bank, The Hamamatsu Iwata Shinkin Bank, and Tokyo Century, provided Enshu Forest Energy with a 7.3 billion yen green loan.
In addition to Forest Energy, which owns 70% of Enshu Forest Energy LLC, Shizuoka Gas & Power and Chubu Electric Power hold 25% and 5% stakes, respectively.
Correction (November 27, 2024): The previous version of this article incorrectly indicated the green loan amount to be 6.96 billion yen, which corresponds to the amount provided by The Shoko Chukin Bank instead of the full syndicated loan amount.