On 1st June, Sumitomo Corporation announced its proposed Sendai-Takamatsu combustion plant will switch its fuel from coal-biomass mix-fuel to biomass mono-fuel combustion.  

This project was jointly planned by Shikoku Electric Power Company (YONDEN) and Sumitomo Corporation and began Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures following the city ordinance. However, YONDEN announced its withdrawal from the project on 10th April and Sumitomo Corporation continued its consideration on feasibility of the project independently.

Sumitomo explained the reason for changing fuel was that they took into consideration of Mayor’s opinion to the EIA document and a guideline of Sendai City to restrain the a new coal-fired power plant in the City and found the feasibility to procure biomass fuel sustainably to burn woody biomass sorely.

As a result, the remaining proposed domestic coal-fired plant becomes 35 (There have been 50 plans since 2012. Among them, 8 had already been started operations and 7 had been canceled/changed fuel).