Global trading and infrastructure conglomerate, Marubeni Corporation is to build a mega solar park in Iwanuma City, Japan.
The 28.3MW project, named ‘Iwanuma-Rinku Mega solar’, is to be located in Iwanuma City, Miyagi Prefecture.
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The ‘mega’ project is expected to be the largest in the Tōhoku region of Japan, producing 29 million kWh per year – powering up to 8,000 households with clean green energy, the company claimed.
The solar power plant is part of a reconstruction plan for Iwanuma City to recover after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and tsunami.
Because of repeated natural disasters, the land for the solar plant was rendered unfit for agriculture, so Iwanuma City awarded the land for the solar power plant in June 2012, and Marubeni was chosen as business operator.
To take on the project, Marubeni created a special purpose company solely for constructing the mega project.
Construction is to start April this year and is hoped to be complete by April next year. The project will the receive Japan’s feed-in-tariff for solar plants for the next 20 years.
Marubeni is among a handful of trading companies which effectively form the backbone of Japan’s industrial economy, with interests in a huge range of areas.
Marubeni’s solar projects are a small segment of its energy sector which mainly deals in oil, liquified natural gas (LNG), and gas trading and marketing, uranium mining, and the development and exploration of oil and gas fields, and petroleum.
Japan just announced its new 2014 FiT rates, which came into effect from 1 April, the Iwanuma-Rinku solar power plant will receive the commercial FiT (any installation over 10kW), set at ¥32/kWh (US$0.32).