General Electric Co. has formed a joint venture with Japan’s Green Power Investment Corp. to set up a 42-megawatt solar project in the Asian nation.
GE said that financing for the project in Futtsu City in Chiba Prefecture will be provided by a syndicate of four banks led by The Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ. Financial details were not disclosed.
The solar farm is currently under construction and is expected to start operating in January 2016. It will sell its power via a 20-year power purchase agreement with Japan’s largest utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co.., under the Japanese feed-in tariff regime.
The project’s photovoltaic solar panels are being supplied by Kyocera Solar Corp. and Green Power Investment is managing construction and operations, and Kyocera Communication Systems Co. will provide ongoing operations and maintenance services.
The project is the third solar investment by GE in Japan this year and its sixth since it began investing in the country’s renewable energy market in 2014. This year, the GE unit invested in Pacifico Energy’s 96.2- PV solar project in Hosoe and also invested an incremental 7.5% equity interest in Japan’s largest solar project, which is under construction in Setouchi City.
