Six years after the natural disaster and the reactor catastrophe in the Fukushima prefecture, governor Masao Uchibori has inaugurated the first E3 power plant by pressing the button that starts the operations. The clean energy power plant by ENTRADE, located at the small health resort Nishigo, uses biomass which is available in the region – for instance pellets derived from waste wood and sawdust – to provide a hotel and a spa resort with electricity, heat and cooling. After the successful start-up of the pilot plant further E3 power plants shall be set up during the following weeks.
By using biomass from the region we protect the environment together with ENTRADE and in addition, create jobs” says Mitsuo Fujita, managing director of the building company Fujita Construction and operator of the hotel and spa resort Abukuma, beautifully situated in the woodland. “In the future, we plan to derive a third of the energy which is required here around the clock from E3 power plants (25 electrical, 55 kW thermal).”
The first power plant, which was installed by ENTRADE, supplies enough heat to bring the water for the healing treatments to a pleasant temperature and to heat the rooms of the hotel. This means going easy on the resources, saving costs and besides that strengthening the regional economy.
“Besides delivering clean energy to large industrial estates in Great Britain, we now demonstrate a further application of our innovative power plants here in Japan: in the energy-intensive hotel and tourism industry, ” says Julien Uhlig, CEO at ENTRADE. “As of today, we start to reduce the load on the Japanese power grids together with our partners and still make even more renewable energy available. Our special thanks go to the governor Masao Uchibori, entrepreneur Mitsuo Fujita but also to the government of North-Rhine Westphalia, which has been cultivating a close cooperation with the Fukushima prefecture.”
ENTRADE has developed the smallest power plant of the world since 2009 that is able to produce electricity, heat and cooling from various waste products. The E3 power plants are manufactured in Crimmitschau, Saxonia. An assembling line has been established in Knowsley Industrial Park, near Liverpool. By now ENTRADE has become a decentralised energy provider and has realised large-scale projects as the one at Knowsley Industrial Parc, the greenest industrial zone in England. The centrepiece is the combination of a few hundred E3 power plants, creating a highly flexible virtual power plant. Besides that ENTRADE is part of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator as well of the German Accelerator program in Silicon Valley.