Japan's 50MW Tomato biomass-fired power plant came on line, holding company Hokkaido Electric Power (Hepco) announced on 13 February.
The biomass plant, located in Japan's northernmost Hokkaido prefecture, started commercial operations today. It will burn around 200,000t/yr of wood pellets, mainly imported from Vietnam and Indonesia. The facility is designed to generate up to 340GWh/yr of electricity, which will be sold under the country's feed in tariff (FiT) scheme at a fixed price of ¥24/kWh (16¢/kWh) for approximately 20 years, according to Hepco. The start-up was delayed from an initially scheduled date of April 2025.
The operating company, Tomato Biomass Power, is a joint venture 80pc owned by Singapore-based fund company Equis and 20pc by Japanese utility Hepco, which also handles plant maintenance.
Hepco aims to install a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system — currently under development — onto the biomass plant around 2030-31 to achieve carbon-negative operations. Hepco is also researching technologies to produce methane from hydrogen and CO2 captured at power plants, the company said.
Hepco further plans to pursue co-firing with coal and black pellets, which are also known as torrefied pellets, at its thermal power plant. Black pellets have a higher calorific value along with better water resistance and grindability compared with regular wood pellets, enabling them to be handled similarly to coal — although they remain more expensive than coal and conventional biomass fuels.
