
Vena Energy signed a virtual PPA with LY Corporation (LYC), a joint venture between SoftBank and Naver that owns LINE and Yahoo! JAPAN among others, the companies announced on January 17, 2025.
As part of the 20-year agreement, Vena Energy will supply 85GWh/year worth of non-fossil certificates (NFCs) to be generated at the 68.6MWAC/71.7MWDC Maniwa Solar Power Plant it is developing in Okayama Prefecture to LYC. The generated power will be sold into the wholesale market while LYC will continue to procure actual power from a power retailer. Supply is expected to start in August 2026.
The PPA was facilitated by Digital Grid’s RE Bridge platform. Digital Grid will also support the PPA’s operation by providing balancing services and selling the generated power on behalf of Vena, as well as by supporting NFC transfer and settlement.
Maniwa Solar Power Plant, which will be built on a former golf course, was awarded a 11.49 yen/kWh feed-in-tariff (FIT) in Japan’s 6th solar auction. To enable the virtual PPA scheme, the project will need to be converted to the feed-in-premium (FIP) scheme, which pays a variable premium on top of the revenues asset owners can generate directly instead of the FIT’s fixed per kWh rate.
This deal is LYC’s first PPA. According to the Japan Energy Hub PPA database, it ranks among the largest virtual PPAs disclosed in Japan to date.