
On January 29, 2025, OCCTO released results of the main capacity market auction for FY2028 delivery, which was held earlier this fiscal year. Overall, 166.2GW, or approximately 97% of all bids, was awarded an average 11,134 yen per kW. The price represents a 42% increase from last year’s average of 7,874 yen per kW.
Assets in Hokkaido, Tohoku, and Tokyo TSO areas were awarded the highest price at 14,812 yen per kW. Those in Kyushu awarded under single price fetched 13,177 yen per kW and in Chubu at 10,280 yen per kW. The awarded price was 8,785 yen per kW in the remaining four mainland TSO areas.
The nine mainland utilities and JERA, a joint venture between TEPCO and Chubu Electric Power, represent 70% of the awarded capacity. The remaining 30% consists of other power producers including J-POWER, spin-offs of the utilities such as TEPCO Renewable Power, smaller independent power producers, and municipalities.
Stable power sources, which include 1MW+ thermal and nuclear power plants, as well as adjustable hydro and 3-hour or longer duration pumped hydro and BESS, accounted for 93% (155GW) of the total awarded capacity. Non-dispatchable assets including wind, solar, and select hydro accounted for 3% (4.8GW). Activation command power sources including demand response accounted for 4% (6.4GW).
While a breakdown of the awarded capacity by technology has not been provided, approximately 67.9% of the bids in terms of capacity involved LNG and other fossil fuel power plants, 20.6% was hydro, 7% was nuclear, and 3.7% were activation command power sources, and the remainder were non-hydro renewable and BESS assets.
Notably, the volume of nuclear bids increased from 7.76GW last year to 12.04GW this year due to multiple power plant restarts and the volume of BESS bids tripled from 80MW last year to 240MW this year.
OCCTO plans to execute contracts with the awarded companies by around April 2025.