TEPCO joins Coc San hydropower plant

Through the acquisition TEPCO acquired a goodly portion of Coc San hydropower plant

InfraCo Asia, a company of Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), confirmed that it has sold its interest in Viet Hydro to TEPCO, noting that through this stake the company indirectly held 33.4 per cent of Coc San hydropower plant in Lao Cai province.

The purchase is part of TEPCO’s strategy to turn renewable energy into one of its primary energy sources to increase the company’s corporate value as the Japanese electricity market is nearing saturation.

Notably, TEPCO has recently begun pursuing the development of hydropower overseas and offshore wind power both in Japan and overseas. The company aims to eventually develop a total capacity of two to three million kilowatts of hydropower.

TEPCO representative executive vice president Seiichi Fubasami said, “Working with InfraCo Asia in the Coc San project is TEPCO’s first investment in an overseas hydropower project. We look forward to furthering our relationship with InfraCo Asia for future collaboration in both South and Southeast Asia.”

TEPCO will continue exploring opportunities to participate in other hydropower projects, mainly in Southeast Asia, and develop its overseas business by partnering with companies in Japan and overseas.

TEPCO is Japan's largest power company group, holding three independent business entities: TEPCO Fuel & Power, Inc., TEPCO Power Grid, Inc., and TEPCO Energy Partner, Inc. As a group, it generates, distributes, and sells electricity and other types of energy principally to the Kanto metropolitan area, which includes Japan's two most populous cities, Tokyo and Yokohama.

Coc San hydropower plant has been operating stably since launching commercial operations in April 2016, supported by a 20-year power purchase agreement with Northern Power Corporation, a power distributing subsidiary of Vietnam Electricity.

The project represents the first foreign direct investment (FDI) in hydropower in the mountainous northern region as well as the largest FDI project in the province at the time it started to go commercial.