The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) plans to launch Chubu TSO area power futures in the spring of 2026, the exchange announced on July 29, 2025. Monthly and fiscal year baseload and peakload products will be offered.
TOCOM said it made the decision “in response to growing demand for hedging” in the TSO area, which has the third-highest demand in the country and is home to Toyota, Brother Industries, and other large industrial power consumers. Only Tokyo and Kansai, areas already covered by the exchange, recorded higher demand in 2024, at 281TWh and 141TWh respectively, than Chubu’s 130TWh.
Wholesale prices in Chubu and Kansai, both areas on the 60Hz side of the Japanese grid, have been, with limited exceptions, coupled until mid-2021. Since around the fall of that year, power in the former has been consistently more expensive. In 2024, the Chubu-Kansai day-ahead price spread averaged 1.08 yen per kWh, ranging between -3.81 and 10.41 yen per kWh. There was no spread on nine days and Kansai price was on average priced higher on only four days.
The plan to introduce Chubu power futures on TOCOM follows multiple other recent expansions on both the Japanese exchange and the European Energy Exchange where the majority of Japan power futures are traded, prompted by growing demand for derivatives.
TOCOM launched fiscal year Tokyo and Kansai futures in May 2025. EEX added average price options in February, limited hours order book trading in April 2025, and is also considering adding Kansai daily futures and introducing Chubu area futures.
Combined, the Tokyo, Kansai, and Chubu areas accounted for about 64% of Japan’s total power demand in 2024, with the fourth-largest region, Kyushu, contributing about 10% at 87TWh.
