Japan adds to biomass power plants

: Biomass, Electricity
14/08/04

A 14MW biomass power plant is planned for northeast Japan's Iwate prefecture, looking to take advantage of a renewable energy feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme and revive an area devastated by the country's 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Japan Pulp and Paper (JP) and New Energy Development (NED) will build the ¥6.5bn ($63.4mn) plant at Noda village through their joint-venture Noda Bio Power JP, which is 77.78pc owned by JP and 22.22pc by NED. Commercial operations are scheduled to start in April 2016.

The Noda plant will use 140,000 t/yr of biomass including unused wood, bark and pruned branches bought domestically and palm kernel shell from the overseas market. The companies target around ¥2.6bn/yr sales through selling 96,480MWh of electricity to major utilities, which will meet annual power demand from 26,800 households.

JP has separately invested in a project to build a 6.25MW biomass power plant at Matsue in west Japan's Shimane prefecture. JP has 40pc stakes in the ¥3bn venture, with fellow Japanese firms Nakabayashi and Sanko having 55pc and 5pc shares respectively. The Matsue plant, which will use around 88,000 t/yr of unused and wasted wood as its main feedstock, is scheduled to come on stream in April next year.

Japan renewed its FIT scheme in July 2012, expanding renewable sources to biomass, wind, geothermal and small-scale hydroelectric generation facilities in addition to solar panels. The new programme has also prompted Japanese utilities to buy renewable electricity from wider areas, such as the industry sector.

Japan is planning to increase its power generation from renewable sources by 50pc to 141.4TWh in 2020, equivalent to 13.5pc of total generation. It also tentatively predicted that renewable power output will reach 214TWh by 2030, or 21pc of the total. Solar power generation is expected to increase the most, rising 15 times from current levels to 57.2TWh in 2030. Biomass will post the second-largest increase, rising a fivefold increase to 21.7TWh over the same period.

Japan's biomass consumption for power generation in the 2013-14 fiscal year ending 31 March totalled 2.1mn t, up by 8.2pc compared with 2mn t in 2012-13, according to economic ministry data.

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26/04/09

Indiana utility NIPSCO locks out 1,600 union workers

New York, 9 April (Argus) — US utility Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) has locked out 1,600 union workers, a move that could affect coal plant operations. NIPSCO locked out the workers on 2 April, after its labor contract with the United Steelworkers expired. The company and union began contract negotiations on 20 January but have yet to reach a new collective bargaining agreement, NIPSCO said on Wednesday. The lockout "will remain in place until the union agrees to the company's last, best and final offer and a new agreement is reached," NIPSCO said. The union says NIPSCO stopped negotiating after submitting its last offer. In addition, "we are not going to accept their last, best, and final offer because it was not in the best interest of our members," said Jon Doust, USW District 7 sub-district director. The affected workers hold a variety of jobs at NIPSCO, including linemen and clerical positions. Some members have positions at the utility's RM Schahfer coal- and natural gas-fired power plant. But the impact of the lockout on power plant operations could be delayed. Electricity demand in general is typically subdued during the so-called spring shoulder season months. This is particularly true for fossil fuel generation. April and May are months when US coal units are typically scheduled for maintenance outages. In addition to Schahfer, NIPSCO operates the Michigan City coal plant in Indiana, which the company is planning to close in 2028, as well as the Sugar Creek natural gas plant and some wind and solar generating facilities in the state. Maintenance at NIPSCO's coal power plants is ongoing but may be slowed by the lockout, Doust said, "or they are hiring even more contractors than they normally would to backfill the fact that we're locked out and not doing our part." The two coal units at the Schahfer plant are not producing any power at the moment, he said. NIPSCO said it has implemented continuity plans to maintain operations during the lockout. According to the utility, trained non-represented employees and contractors, with support from affiliated companies, are performing work in line with existing safety procedures. The utility is continuing to comply with a US Department of Energy (DOE) emergency order to keep Schahfer's coal units - 17 and 18 - available for generation dispatch if needed, NIPSCO said. Before the order the two units, which have a combined capacity of 848MW, had been slated to retire by the end of last year. Schahfer sells power into the Midcontinent Independent System Operator. Neither the grid operator nor DOE immediately responded to requests for comment. The Schahfer plant took 588,606 short tons (533,975 metric tonnes) of coal in all of 2025 and 95,216st in January 2026 from Peabody Energy's Gateway mine in Illinois, US Energy Information Administration data show. In January, the Schahfer plant burned 90,574st of coal. By Elena Vasilyeva Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2026. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Spain car sector power demand unlikely to grow in 2026

26/04/09

Spain car sector power demand unlikely to grow in 2026

London, 9 April (Argus) — Electricity demand in Spain's car manufacturing sector is unlikely to rebound in the near term, as falling production volumes owing to the shift from internal combustion engines (Ice) to electric vehicles (EVs) continue to outweigh higher electrification and a growing EV supply chain. Although EV manufacturing has grown since 2023, a much sharper decline in output of Ice units means EV growth has been unable to offset the overall decline in production. The automotive industry's raw output continues to fall from its 2017-19 peak. In 2025, passenger car output fell by 12pc on the year, according to the latest data from Spain's tourism and industry ministry Mintur. And so far in 2026, Mintur data show that manufacturing output for the sector is down by 7.2pc on the year compared with the equivalent period of 2025. Spain's automotive industry association Anfac president, Jose Lopez-Tafall, attributes the country's falling production from the pre-pandemic peak to two factors. "One of these factors is negative and one is positive," Lopez-Tafall said at Anfac's 2026 forum. "The negative is that 90pc of our exports continue to go to the European market." The Anfac president added that "if Europe gets the flu, Spain does too", referring to weakening demand in Europe impacting Spain's manufacturing output. Europe's declining demand in recent years reflects the bottleneck as manufacturers have been slow in their transition to majority EV manufacturing over Ice. Spain's transition to produce EVs at an increasing scale has hurt output, as factories are forced to adopt new and complicated processes, according to Lopez-Tafall. But he pointed to major progress in this area which he believes will help the industry in the long term, as Spain will transition from producing 22 EV models in 2025 to 32 this year, likely supporting EV output going forward. This decline has outweighed higher electrification, with the industry moving more of its energy consumption towards electricity over the past 10 years. So far this decade, 63.4pc of the industry's final energy consumption has come from electricity, according to data from the ecological transition ministry Miteco ( see demand graph ). This is up from about 58.9pc in 2010-19 and just 40.6pc in 2000-09. The increasing share of electricity has displaced oil products and, to a lesser extent, natural gas. The former has fallen from a share of about 11pc in final energy demand over 2010-19 to less than 3pc so far this decade. Despite progress in electrification, outright power demand in the automotive sector has receded since its peak in the late 2010s. 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Spain's government launched the Spain Auto 2030 plan in December to address the country's slow progress in EV production and purchasing. Under the new scheme, Spain is targeting total vehicle production across all types of 2.7mn by 2035 — an increase of about 10pc from 2023 levels. And the government intends for 95pc of these units to be EVs, meaning production of about 2.55mn/yr by the end of the decade. This would mean an increase in EV production of at least three times in the next four years. The plan also notes that the average BEV vehicle requires 10MWh of electricity consumption per unit, double the average for an Ice model. EV supply chain to support sector growth The Spanish government has earmarked major financial support to build up the country's EV industry along the entire supply chain. The Perte Vec scheme has awarded €837mn to EV battery production projects across Spain. One of the largest recipients from the scheme was Dutch firm Stellantis, the largest car manufacturer in Spain by total output. The firm received €114mn from the scheme for its Figueruelas EV battery gigafactory near Zaragoza in northern Spain. Stellantis is building the factory as part of a joint venture with Chinese battery firm CATL, with construction starting in November 2025. The venture will have capacity of up to 50GWh with production likely to start at the end of 2026, according to Stellantis. The Perte Vec scheme also allocated €167mn to Volkswagen's Sagunto gigafactory near Valencia in 2022 . The site has a planned capacity of 40GWh with the option to expand to 60GWh, with first production starting this year, according to Volkswagen. By James Doran Car sector power demand Spanish car production % Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2026. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Meta funds El Paso nat gas plant as interim power fix

26/04/06

Meta funds El Paso nat gas plant as interim power fix

Houston, 6 April (Argus) — Tech giant Meta is paying to build a natural gas-fired plant to power its El Paso data center, but regulatory filings show the agreement is temporary, raising questions about how Texas ratepayers will be protected once the initial five-year period ends. El Paso Electric (EPE) plans to supply the data center through McCloud Generation, a 366MW plant with 813 modular gas generators located next to the site, according to a filing with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT). Starting in 2027, the plant would power the data center exclusively for an initial five-year "bridge period" and remain separate from EPE's transmission system, with all costs recovered from Meta under a commission-approved rate. The arrangement aligns with the White House-backed Ratepayer Protection Pledge , which calls on large technology companies to pay for the power and infrastructure needed to support their data-center loads rather than shifting those costs onto other customers. But the filing also shows that much of the ultimate risk allocation is deferred, with decisions about long-term cost recovery left to future regulatory proceedings once the temporary structure ends. "I don't think we have much precedent for this type of temporary arrangement," said Joshua D. Rhodes, an energy researcher at the University of Texas, noting that utility-owned generation built as a time-limited bridge for a single customer is largely untested in regulatory practice. The bridge arrangement is needed because the data center's load is expected to ramp up faster than the utility's system can currently accommodate, EPE said in the filing. Meta, through its subsidiary Wurldwide LLC, originally requested 220MW from EPE and the commission approved rates based on that load. Projected demand has since increased to more than 440MW by 2027 and potentially to 1GW by 2029, the filing said. Meta recently announced it would invest $10b to grow the data center to 1GW, a decision that required EPE to amend its filing. The project has drawn opposition from local community organizations and lawmakers, who say Meta previously indicated the El Paso facility would be powered by renewable energy. Meta has since said it plans to pay for the development of renewable generation elsewhere to match the entirety of the data center's electricity use. Once the transmission and generation capacity is expanded to meet Meta's higher load requirements, EPE will request approval to connect the McCloud generation facility to the grid "and incorporate the cost of the plant into jurisdictional cost of service and retail rates", the utility said. The filing does not specify who will pay for the remaining costs associated with the generation. "Once generation is incorporated into a utility's cost of service, regulators still have to decide how operating costs, maintenance and depreciation are allocated," said Rhodes, the UT researcher. "Those decisions don't disappear just because a customer paid to build the facility." Meta and EPE did not respond to emails requesting comment. By Jasmina Kelemen Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2026. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Trump budget targets climate, clean energy programs

26/04/06

Trump budget targets climate, clean energy programs

Houston, 6 April (Argus) — The 2027 budget proposed by President Donald Trump would cut billions in funding for renewable and clean electricity development as part of a continued push to eliminate what he dubs "Green New Scam" policies put forward by the administration of former president Joe Biden. The 2027 fiscal year budget would eliminate $15.2bn allocated to the US Department of Energy (DOE) under a 2021 bipartisan infrastructure package "to deploy unreliable intermittent energy infrastructure, remove carbon dioxide from the air, and buy other costly technologies burdensome to ratepayers and consumers", according to the proposal put forward by the Trump administration on 3 April. The budget would similarly repurpose $4.7bn granted to the DOE under the 2021 law, allocating $3.5bn to "rapidly deploy firm baseload power", tacitly technologies such as natural gas, coal and nuclear which, unlike solar and wind, can generate electricity around the clock. Another $1.2bn would go toward artificial intelligence computing. The administration also aims to eliminate $1.1bn for climate change research conducted by the DOE's Office of Science and cancel $150mn for DOE studies on technologies like electric vehicles and direct air capture systems. The proposal would end renewable energy programs worth $45mn at the US Department of the Interior, with the administration endeavoring among other things to "put a stop to disastrous offshore wind energy projects". In addition, it would eliminate $1.6bn for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after its educational grant programs "consistently funded" initiatives that "radicalize students against markets" and promoted "baseless environmental alarm", according to the administration. The budget would also cut $204.5mn from the US Treasury Department's community development financial institutions fund, which uses federal and private money to support economically disadvantaged areas. The reductions will prevent tax revenue from supporting policies to which the administration is opposed, including "wind farms that degrade America's natural landscape and fail to serve American energy consumers". Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D–New York) criticized the cuts, including "massive" reductions to energy affordability, while promising that Democrats would fight "tooth and nail" to prevent the budget from becoming law. "Trump is already spending massive sums on never-ending wars abroad, and now he's pushing for a record-breaking $1.5 trillion in defense spending while slashing programs that Americans and seniors care about and rely on," Schumer said. By Patrick Zemanek Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2026. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Iranian drone hits Kuwaiti power and desalination plant

26/04/03

Iranian drone hits Kuwaiti power and desalination plant

Dubai, 3 April (Argus) — A power and water desalination plant in Kuwait sustained "material damage" as a result of an Iranian attack in the early hours of Friday, the country's electricity ministry said. The ministry did not disclose which specific facility was hit, saying only that "some components" were damaged in the attack. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kuwait has eight major power plants dotted along its coast, the majority of which also include desalination units that supply a significant portion of the emirate's fresh water. This is the second attack on Kuwait's power and desalination facilities in less than a week. A service building at an unnamed power and water desalination plant sustained "significant material damage" in an attack in the early hours of Monday . Iran has been responding to US and Israeli strikes on its territory, facilities and infrastructure by launching missiles and drones against targets in Israel and across the Mideast Gulf. Iran's armed forces regularly claim they are targeting regional assets and facilities that have links with Israel or the US, but many of the targets being hit clearly do not. Kuwait, in particular, has been experiencing a spike in hits on its critical infrastructure in recent days. The 346,000 b/d Mina al-Ahmadi refinery came under attack for the third time in two weeks early on Friday. The country's 454,000 b/d Mina Abdullah refinery was also struck in the middle of March. Kuwait International Airport has also been repeatedly struck by Iranian drones over the past month. Fuel depots were most recently hit on 1 April and 25 March, while the airport's radar system was struck on 28 March. Kuwaiti airspace has been closed since the start of hostilities on 28 February. Seven overhead power lines in several parts of Kuwait were also taken out of service late last week after debris falling from intercepted drones damaged the network. This caused partial power outages in some parts of the country. By Nader Itayim Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2026. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

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