Kioxia began procuring hydropower from a refurbished asset owned by Chubu Electric Power, the company announced on December 2, 2025. The memory manufacturer did not identify the specific facility, but previous disclosures by the utility suggest the deal is likely tied to the 68.2MW Oigawa Hydropower Plant in Shizuoka Prefecture.
According to the statement, Kioxia expects to source approximately 160GWh per year under the “Google-led effort to bring additional, cost-efficient clean electricity to manufacturers in Japan,” with the remaining output of the power plant being supplied to other offtakers. The initiative helps reduce the tech company’s scope 3 emissions by supporting its suppliers’ decarbonization.
The project appears consistent with a plan to upgrade Oigawa Hydropower Plant with support from a consortium of six global offtakers that Chubu EPCO announced in January 2023. At the time, the utility disclosed only three of the participants, namely Applied Materials, Micron Technology, and Skyworks Solutions, all of which are linked to the semiconductor industry.
Chubu EPCO said the initiative was the first in its efforts to extend the lifetime of its aging hydropower portfolio in collaboration with corporate power consumers. It was expecting the refurbishment to lead to an additional 1.9GWh in annual output. The utility’s 2023 statement said construction work was scheduled to take place between October 2024 and April 2025 and that its retail unit Chubu Electric Power Miraiz would be the party contracting with the offtakers.
Oigawa was commissioned in 1936. The initiative highlights a broader opportunity for hydropower operators to repower aging assets with offtaker support, using incremental output from refurbishments to offer stable, around-the-clock renewable power with additionality.
