On Thursday, Etrion Corporation, announced the completion of the 13.2 MW Komatsu PV farm in Japan's Ishikawa prefecture. Through a 20-year power purchase agreement with the Hokuriku Electric Power utility, it will receive ¥32/kWh ($0.30/kWh). The Swiss solar independent power producer (IPP) expects the plant to produce around 14 GWh per annum.
Marco Northland, Etrion’s CEO, commented, “We are delighted with our continuous progress in Japan and Komatsu represents an important milestone as we reach nearly 60MW of gross capacity now operating in Japan.”
In its Q1 2018 report, Etrion stated that is it currently working on a 190 MW backlog of projects, and is looking forward to expanding its business base in the promising Japanese solar market. The swiss power producer highlighted the achievement of completing the plant ahead of time, while being on budget.
“I am very grateful to our team, Hitachi High Technologies and all other stakeholders that worked around the clock to complete this project ahead of schedule, enabling Etrion to capture all the revenues during the summer, being the highest production months. It also releases internal resources which can now focus on the next projects in the backlog targeted to begin construction within the next 12 months,” said Northland.
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Apart from the backlog in Japan, the company reported that it has another 200 MW in early pipeline projects in the country. After an unlucky attempt to enter a previously very promising looking Chilean market, Etrion is now fully focussing on Japan, where it boasts full order books.
Following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi, Japan's government imposed a 40-year maximum life time for its nuclear plants. This means that a signifiacnt number of reactors will be decommissioned by 2030.
Today, the Japanese Ministry of Economy issued a draft energy outline, where it failed to take a clear stance on where it is headed. The debate around eliminting feed-in-tariffs for solar PV is at least picking up. This could boost the market in the near future, giving those companies already established in Japan a good head start.
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