
J-POWER resumed commercial operation of the hydroelectric Suesawa Power Plant in Niigata Prefecture on November 19, 2024, after repowering it from 1.5MW to 2.2MW.
According to the company’s statement, two-unit power plant in the Tohoku TSO area was first commissioned in February 1958. Repowering work on both of the units, which led to a 700kW increase in output, commenced on April 19, 2023, approximately 65 years after the plant first started commercial operation.
The Suesawa Power Plant is one of the 61 power plants in J-POWER’s 8.58GW hydroelectric portfolio. It is also one of the more than half of the 61 power plants that have been in service since the 1950s and 1960s. The company has, so far, started work on or finished repowering eight of those, with Nagayama Unit 2 having been the most recent one to restart operation prior to Suesawa.