US conglomerate General Electric (GE) will invest in the running of Japan’s largest solar power plant, an ¥80 billion (US$777 million) scheduled for completion in 2018, according to reports in Japanese and international media.
The plant is located in Setouchi, Okayama Prefecture, in the south-west of the main Japanese island of Honshu, and will have a generation capacity of 230MW. It will be operated by Kuni-Umi Asset Management Fund, based in Tokyo.
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According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, General Electric will invest between ¥10 billion (US$97 million) and ¥20 billion (US$194 million) in the project for a majority stake. A spokesman for GE’s energy infrastructure funding division GE Energy Financial Services confirmed the equity figure to news agency Reuters.
The plant will supercede a project planned by mobile telecoms provider Softbank’s planned 110MW project to become the largest in the country. The largest completed plant in Japan to date is a 70MW power station in the southern region of Kagoshima, which went online in November last year.
