
Kuji Regional Power, a local retailer based in Kuji City, Iwate Prefecture, signed a 20-year 1.75MW (AC) PPA with power aggregator Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions (Toshiba ESS), the companies announced on July 10, 2024.
As part of the PPA, Toshiba ESS will aggregate power from 35 low-voltage solar power plants in the Tohoku TSO area and sell the generated power to Kuji Regional Power at a fixed price for 20 years. Toshiba ESS will be responsible for balancing the power plants generation and will bear the generators’ imbalance risk.
The power plants will include 15 assets with a combined output of 750kW (AC) subsidized using the feed-in-premium (FIP) scheme. These will be newly developed. The remaining 20 assets with a combined output of 1MW (AC) will be existing non-FIP power plants.
Kuji Regional Energy was established in 2017 by four Kuji City-based companies and received its power retail license in 2018. The same year, Kuji City invested in the company, making Kuji Regional Energy the first ‘local retailer’ in Iwate Prefecture. The retailer started supplying power to commercial customers, primarily facilities owned by the city and local companies, later in 2018, and in 2019, it expanded its business to offer retail plans for residential customers.
The Japan Energy Hub CPPA module shows the generation related to at least four other corporate PPAs being aggregated by Toshiba ESS.