Yamagata Prefecture’s Sakata City and the Sakata Shindenryoku Consortium launched a scheme on April 1, 2025, to deliver part of the power generated by the city-owned Jurizuka Power Plant to local schools.
The consortium, consisting of Kato Sogyo, a local construction company and wind operator, and Yamagata Power Supply, a local power retailer owned by the prefecture and businesses including Kato Sogyo and NTT Anode Energy, was selected for the project through a public call for proposals.
As part of the project, Yamagata Power Supply will receive all power generated by the 6.9MW onshore wind power plant, expected to be about 20.5GWh annually, for three years. This will be done through a mechanism that allows power from a specific asset under a feed-in-tariff (FIT) contract to be sold by the area’s grid operator to a designated power retailer instead of being sold into the wholesale market.
Yamagata Power Supply will deliver about 3.5GWh of the power to 29 Sakata City elementary and junior high schools. It is unclear how the remaining 17GWh will be utilized. However, with local consumption being a key element of the project, and a scoring component in the selection process, it is likely the power will be supplied to other consumers in the city through retail contracts.
Sakata Jurizuka Power Plant was commissioned in April 2021 and consists of three 2.3MW turbines. It was FIT-certified in FY2014, when the 20-year tariff offered to onshore wind projects was 22 yen per kWh, and is under a contract valid until March 2041.
The city’s initiative follows other local consumption efforts, including a three-year PPA through which Octopus Energy will supply power from Gunma Prefecture-owned hydro power plants to businesses in the prefecture.
